CHAPTER 6
The Inconveniences of Society
There is the most delicate shade of difference between civility and intrusiveness, familiarity and common-place, pleasantry and sharpness, the natural and the rude, gaiety and carelessness; hence the inconveniences of society, and the errors of its members. To define well in conduct these distinctions, is the great art of a man of the world. It is easy to know what to do; the difficulty is to know what to avoid.
—Decorum, page 26
A good deal of dickering took place before Connor and Blanche agreed upon the characters for their costumes for the charity ball. Connor nixed the Harlequins, Columbines, Brunhildes, Siegfrieds, Raleighs, and Elizabeths that were in vogue this year and Spanish gypsies were “not fine enough.” Blanche settled on Marie Antoinette but failed to persuade him to sacrifice his buccaneer for Louis XVI. Blanche was to engage a costumer and settle on designs, fabrics, and fittings with minimal interruption to the Hotel Excelsior’s progress. And if the expenses for visiting gowns and reception gowns were slipped in among the costumer’s charges, no matter. Connor’s bank account could stand the strain.
“Don’t worry, darling,” Blanche had assured him when he cross-questioned her about costumers. “I’ll find the best places. By the time we’re done, Blackbeard himself won’t be able to tell you from a member of his crew.”
The parts of New York that catered to those for whom costumes, characters, and impersonation were a way of life were not the finest in town, nor would their clientele necessarily be on Mrs. Vanderbilt’s guest lists. Connor might not approve, but he could not disapprove of what he did not know. Blanche felt as if she’d been sprung from a trap.
Though her father’s family had come from money, he himself had been a younger son, the renegade—a musician and composer whose work made him a frequenter of opera houses, theaters, music halls, and mansions. With an artist for a wife—and she reputed to have come from Spanish gypsy stock—the bohemian life of artists’ studios, salons, and the adoption of personae as the situation dictated were as familiar to Blanche as if they had been inscribed on her personality from birth. The gifts of money her father’s mother had intended for her and her sisters’ education financed the family for two years in Europe, where indeed the young and striking trio of Blanche, Teresa, and Harriet received an education beyond anything their grandmother would have imagined—or approved. With the preoccupation of survival and the desire to rise in the world, Blanche had given not a moment’s thought to the withdrawal her spirit had undergone when deprived of the color, noise, odor, and sensation of the life she had known. The chance to reacquaint herself with the theatrical costumers and the world with which she and her family had been so familiar was intoxicating.
Though the theaters that catered to the elite had begun their great migration uptown many years before, the Bowery still boasted good entertainment. Blanche picked her way through the dirty back streets and fetid, trash-strewn alleyways. She jostled with handcarts and horse-drawn vans and stopped at shop after shop, referred on to street after street until she found what she sought.
Down a blind alley, recessed into a windowless wall of dingy brick, was a door bright with red-, green-, and yellow-painted panels and a brass knob and knocker. Above the door, a black sign with bold red letters edged in gold proclaimed ATELIER MAXIMILLIAN. She gave the knocker a brisk rap. A peephole door snapped open and a spectacled eye appeared and raised a bushy eyebrow. The door was flung open by a portly man in plaid trousers, a brocade waistcoat, and a white collarless shirt, with a smattering of grizzled hair on top of his head and sticking out over his ears.
“My dear Mrs. Alvarado,” the man exclaimed as he took her hand and kissed it. “How do you do, my dear lady?”
“Hello, Max, darling.”
“You should have wired that you were in town. How long it has been since we’ve had the pleasure. Come in. Come in.”
“I had a good job tracking you down,” said Blanche, stepping over the threshold. “You seem to have moved shops several times since we last met.”
“Yes, well, you know how it is,” he said, still smiling. “The fortunes of war, one might say. The modern bill collector is such a relentless breed of bloodhound.”
“The Oriental and the Neue Stadt still not paying up?” asked Blanche sympathetically.
“Oh, my dear, the list gets longer and longer. But let us not speak of unpleasantness. Come on back and let us become reacquainted.”
He led her through a rabbit warren of rooms crowded with costumes hanging from every hook and pole, mounted a narrow staircase, and skirted the perimeter of a workroom flooded with light from three tall windows. Three women ran three sewing machines that kept up a steady rat-tat-tat as a man cut a pattern at a long table. Fabric was stacked to the ceiling, scraps of braid and lace were trodden underfoot, and trays of notions were set higgledy-piggledy on shelves. The proprietor admitted Blanche to a small glassed-in office and indicated a shabby wooden chair. She sat down and drew off her gloves.
“Now, my dear, may I offer you refreshment from my somewhat limited stores?” he said, opening a small cabinet containing a single bottle and two glasses. “Gin or gin?” This invitation she declined and Max, glass in hand, sat down with a creak at the well-worn desk.
“What brings you to New York and to my humble establishment, my dear?”
“I arrived here several weeks ago to join a gentleman who has just concluded a rather lucrative business deal. We are expecting to be caught up in a number of social engagements. One of them happens to be a masked ball.”
“This wouldn’t be in aid of the new hospital,” ventured Max.
“The Ladies’ Auxiliary Ball, yes. My friend and I want completely original designs, you see. Naturally I wouldn’t rest until I had found you.” Max beamed.
“You understand, my friend is a very busy man and couldn’t possibly be bothered to come here, but mightn’t you be able to send someone to his hotel for measurements and fittings and such like?”
“Say no more, dear lady. We shall send a man accoutered as the most respectable of costumers for the highest of high society. Simply tell me where and when.”
“You are a darling, Max,” she said as she took a folded piece of paper from her handbag. “Here is the gentleman’s name and address and a list of the types of fabrics and accessories we shall require. You can arrange for wigs and shoes and such, as always?”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Naturally you and I shall consult as to the finer points, though the lion’s share, darling Max, will remain in your capable hands. Here’s a little something on account,” she added, pulling her wallet from her bag and handing him several bills.
“You’re too generous.”
“You don’t possess a telephone?”
“Alas . . .”
“Then I’ll wire you as to an appointment time for Mr. O’Casey and for a time when you and I might consult here again.”
“Certainly.”
Blanche rose and Max hoisted himself to his feet. They retraced their steps through the workroom, down the stairs, and squeezed among the costumes to the door.
“Until then,” said Max. “Charmed to see you again.”
“Likewise, darling,” she said, giving him her hand. She turned to go, then stopped. “And Max,” she said. “For heaven’s sake, make sure you pay your workers.”
It was one-thirty and Blanche was hungry. She turned down a side street where she used to know a smaller, quieter luncheon room, hospitable to ladies, that served excellent though simple fare. Until today she had resisted visiting her old haunts and renewing old acquaintances. At any moment she expected to be introduced to Connor’s associates and thus be released into the boundless surge of the mainstream. Her search for Max brought the old longings back to her. Besides, she couldn’t wait for Connor forever. Her step quickened. She saw the sign: THE BLUE IRIS TEAROOM.
The decor had changed little since she was last there, a lifetime ago it seemed. Chinaware in patterns of blue were still displayed on a shelf that ran around the entire room—vases, porcelain ladies in blue dresses, flow-blue cups, saucers, plates, and English china teapots of all descriptions. A hodgepodge of familiar historical prints still occupied the walls. A small china vase with a few cuttings of the season’s last chrysanthemums sat on each linen-covered table. Mismatched chairs were brought into greater symmetry with identical deep russet and blue-violet upholstered seats.
Ladies were lunching alone at several tables. A neatly frocked waitress in a white apron and cap showed her to a table toward the back. Blanche deposited her jacket and handbag on an empty chair and sat, taking in the whole room. The moment she closed her menu the waitress was at her elbow, took her order, and departed. Blanche relaxed.
That evening Connor congratulated her on her luck with their costumes and said that he was glad she had found in the Blue Iris a small retreat. She took advantage of this approval and included a stop at the Iris whenever she ventured out.
One afternoon after an unusually good visit with Max, she decided to celebrate at the Blue Iris. Seated at what was becoming her usual table, she had ordered her tea and cakes and had pulled from her handbag the small notebook to review the day’s progress when an arrival at the front of the room caught her attention.
A woman entered wrapped in a dark paisley shawl with a dark oversize soft velvet hat with a heavy broach at one side. So flamboyant a costume would have made most women look ridiculous, but something confident and familiar in the woman’s posture carried off the ensemble. Blanche could see the profile of a white chin, smiling lips, and straight nose beneath the hat. Blanche sat arrested.
“Is everything all right, madam?” inquired her waitress.
“Yes, everything is fine, thank you,” answered Blanche, caught a little off guard.
“Shall I bring you fresh hot water?”
“Yes, if you please,” she said to send the girl away.
By then the woman stood by a table unwinding the shawl and laying it across the back of a chair and unbuttoning her coat. She sat in the frame of the tearoom’s front window, the fading afternoon light casting her in silhouette. A waitress drew up to take her order. The order completed, the woman’s glance followed the retreating waitress and then took in the rest of the room, stopping one by one at each table. Blanche waited. Surely the flamboyant style was unmistakable. The gaze passed lightly over Blanche. Probably a mistake, she thought as she breathed again. Then in an almost imperceptible moment of recognition, the woman’s look returned. She looked away and smiled from under the hat, then turned again toward Blanche. This time Blanche saw an amused smile spread across the woman’s face. Relieved, Blanche smiled in return.
Neither acknowledging the other, the women took their tea and cakes in silence. Finally, the woman made a show of drawing out her purse to pay her bill. She handed the girl the money, rose, wrapped herself in the coat and shawl, and left without another look. As the waitress retreated to fetch a tray from the sideboard, she passed by Blanche’s table.
“The lady asked me to give you this, madam,” she said, proffering a card.
The card read,
MRS. ANTON RYDER
20TH STREET, GRAMERCY PARK
NEW YORK, NEW YORK