Mirror Image, page 9
It was painful for him at times, and yet he liked being there now with his daughters. He was happy with his business deals, and the time he was spending with his attorneys making plans, they were interesting, intelligent men, and it reminded him of the days before he'd retired, when he was running an empire, and not just a portfolio of investments.
He had been thinking of selling his steel mills in Pittsburgh recently, and Charles thought he had located a serious, interested buyer.
But it was not a simple decision to make, and he was thinking now that they might be in New York at least until the end of October, if not longer.
"Are you enjoying it here? " her father asked, happy to have a moment alone with her.
"Yes, Father, I like it, " she said with a quiet smile. "I'm not sure I'd like living here all the time. I think I'd miss the country if we lived in the city permanently, but I like the museums, and the people, and the parties. There's always so much going on. It's fun being here." She smiled at him more warmly, and for a moment she looked like a child again, but she was still very much a woman, and there were times when he felt guilty for being so possessive of them. He knew they were of an age when they should be out in the world, as they were now, and finding husbands, and yet he knew he would be heartbroken when they finally left him.
"I suppose I should be making more of an effort to introduce you to eligible young men, " he said halfheartedly, sipping his port, and they exchanged a smile. "You and Victoria should be getting married one of these days, though I hate thinking of it, I'll admit. I don't know what I'd do without you. You most of all, I'm afraid. You'll have to stop taking such good care of me, my dear, so it won't be such a shock when you go. I absolutely dread it." His eyes were filled with fatherly love, as she took his hand in her own and kissed it.
"I'll never leave you. You know that. I couldn't." It was what she had said to him when she was five, and then ten, but now she really meant it. His health had weakened considerably over the years, his heart wasn't strong, and she couldn't imagine leaving him. Who would look after him if she did? Who would run his homes? Who would keep after everyone, or see when he was Lying about his health and actually feeling ill, and really needed the doctor? She knew she could never trust anyone else to take care of him, certainly not Victoria who never even noticed when he was ill, until somebody, usually Olivia, told her.
"I couldn't leave you, Father, " she said firmly, and meant it.
"You can't stay an old maid, not as pretty as you both are, " he said, admiring her, and knowing that it would have been wrong to let her do that. And yet, there was a part of him that wanted to let her have her way, even if it meant sacrificing herself. He needed her as much as she thought he did, and it was so easy having her take care of everything domestic. It was almost as though she was already married to his life, she took care of the most minute details. He would have been lost without her, but he also knew that not pushing her out of the nest eventually would have been incredibly selfish. And then, not even wanting to think of losing her, he carefully changed the subject.
"Has Victoria met anyone exciting here? I haven't paid much attention to any prospective suitors." He had noticed that Charles Dawson seemed to be somewhat fascinated by her, but he was probably intrigued by both of them. Most people were, it was hard not to be overwhelmed by such doubly extraordinary beauty.
"I don't think so, Father, " Olivia lied, as always, for her, even now, worded about the abominable Toby. We haven't really met anyone yet.
I mean .. . not really .. ." They had of course met everyone who was anyone in New York, at the theater when their father took them out, at dinner parties, at concerts they had gone to. But no one had specifically introduced them to any young men with the intention of marrying them off. In some ways, Olivia correctly guessed that some people were intimidated by them, or viewed them as freaks, or thought they would never agree to leave each other. Most people had no concept of how different they were, how divergent their tastes and interests.
They just saw them as one very pretty girl, seen double.
"Victoria is behaving, isn't she? " her father asked with a look of amusement. He had finally heard, through indirect means, that his daughter had learned to dave and had actually stolen one of his cars, and had gone somewhere with it in Croton. He had never heard of her near arrest, fortunately, and the escapade with the Ford struck him as harmless and somewhat silly. Her mother might have done the same thing at her age, and driven right over his favorite flowerbeds in the process.
She had actually walked her horse into their living room once, on a bet with a friend, and everyone had been horrified. But Edward had thought it was very funny. He was actually surprisingly tolerant for a man his age, and had never been particularly upset by Victoria's high spirits, in fact, he had indulged them, because she reminded him so much of her mother.
"Will you be all right down here? " Olivia asked when she left him to dress for the party at the Astors'. She poured him another glass of port, and left him sitting next to the fireplace, comfortably reading the evening paper. He said he was going upstairs in a few minutes himself to dress, and told her that time to be ready for the party.
And as she walked upstairs, she thought of the questions he had asked, about Victoria meeting any men in New York, and either of them finding husbands and getting married. And she thought too about what she'd said to him. She really couldn't imagine leaving him and getting married.
What if his health failed? Or he became ill? Who would take care of him?
It would have been different if her mother had been alive, they would have had the luxury of normal lives then. But now Olivia felt that at least one of them should stay and take care of him, and she was the obvious one to do it. But as she thought of it, she let her mind drift to Charles, and she suddenly asked herself what would happen if a man like him ever asked her to marry him. What would she do then? It made her heart beat faster just thinking of it. She couldn't imagine a man like Charles ever pursuing her .. . but if he did .. . if ..
. she couldn't even allow herself to think of it. She had obligations here.
Charles had absolutely no interest in her. He was only being kind to her whenever he came to see her father.
When Olivia reached her bedroom, she could hear her sister dressing in the bathroom beyond. They had closets and mirrors there, and when she walked in to run a bath, she saw half a dozen dresses on the floor, among them the pink one she had selected for them to wear to the Astors'.
"What are you doing? " She looked at Victoria in surprise, and then quickly understood what had happened.
"I'm not wearing that thing you picked out for tonight, " Victoria said viciously, throwing another reject on a chair. "We'll look like a couple of country bumpkins, although I suppose that was your intention."
"I think it's very pretty, " Olivia said noncommittally, admitting nothing to her overwrought twin sister. "What else did you have in mind? " She had obviously already been through half their closet.
And at the moment she was holding up a dress Olivia had never liked.
She had tried copying a dress by Beer, in deep crimson velvet with tiny jet beads, and a long beaded train behind it. Olivia had always thought it was far too low cut for them, and other than at a Christmas party at their father's house in Croton-on-Hudson, they had never worn it. "I don't like that, and you know it, " Olivia said to Victoria as soon as she saw what she was holding. It had a black satin beaded cape that went over it, lined in the crimson velvet. "It's too low cut, and too showy. We'll look vulgar."
"This is a ball, not a tea party in Croton, Olivia, " Victoria said coldly.
"You're trying to show off for him, Victoria, and I won't help you do it. In that dress, in this town, we'll look like harlots. And I won't wear it."
"Fine, " Victoria said, pirouetting on one heel, and Olivia didn't want to admit to her how sensational she looked. The dress was a lot better than she remembered, but it also seemed far too d'ring.
"Then why don't you wear the pink, Ollie dear, and I'll wear this one.
" Much to Olivia's surprise, she sounded as though she meant it.
"Don't be stupid." They never went out in different outfits. All their lives, they had matched every single thing, right down to their underwear and their hairpins. It was simply what they did, and going out in something different than her twin would have made Olivia feel naked.
"Why not? We're grown-up. We don't have to wear the same thing anymore.
Bertie always thought it was sweet when we were children. But we don't have to be sweet anymore, Olivia, in fact, I refuse to. That pink thing is sweet, it's so sweet' it makes me sick to look at it. This is what I want to wear, what I'm going to wear to the Astors' tonight, and if you don't like it, feel free to wear something different."
"That's spiteful of you, Victoria, and I know precisely what you're doing and so do you. And let me tell you, last night was not the most important evening of his life, but it may have been of yours, if you choose to ruin it for Tobias Whitticomb. You're a damn fool if you do that." Olivia spat the words at her, yanking the identical red velvet dress out of her closet. "I hate this stupid dress, and I'm sorry I had it made, particularly if you're going to make fools of us, forcing me to wear it to the Astors'."
"I told you, " Victoria said, having laid the dress aside again, while she brushed her hair. "You don't have to wear it." But this time, Olivia didn't answer.
The two never spoke to each other again, as they bathe and dressed, and powdered and perfumed. And Olivia looked surprised when she saw Victoria put on the merest hint of lip rouge. Neither of them had ever worn it before, and Olivia thought her sister suddenly looked very different.
She looked not only beautiful, but more than a little racy.
"I'm not wearing that, " Olivia said sullenly as she finished doing her hair, and watched Victoria put on the lip rouge in the mirror.
"No one said you had to."
"You're in over your head, Victoria, " Olivia said darkly.
"Maybe I swim better than you do."
"He'll drown you, " Olivia said sadly, as Victoria left the room, dragging the satin-and-velvet beaded cape behind her.
As the two girls came down the stairs a few minutes later, their father stared up at them in total silence. Everything about the way they looked that night told him they were no longer little girls. They looked like truly dazzling women. Victoria came down the stairs first, and even the way she moved spoke of worlds she knew nothing about, and yet was instinctively a part of. It was Olivia who looked considerably less at ease in the highly visible outfit. Their figures suited it, and the dress showed off their creamy skin and lithe young bodies.
They both had tiny waists and high breasts, all of which were shown off to full advantage in the low-cut crimson velvet.
"Good Heavens, where did you get those dresses? " their father asked, surprised to see them in something so fashionable and almost exotic.
"Olivia had them made for us, " Victoria said sweetly, "I think she designed them."
"I had them copied actually, " Olivia said unhappily as the butler helped them put their capes on, "but they didn't come out the way I wanted."
"I'll be the envy of every man there, " their father said generously and led them both outside to the waiting limousine. There was a chill in the air, and he looked at both girls as they stepped into the car ahead of him. He'd been right that afternoon, they were certainly no longer children. And it would be a miracle if every man there didn't propose to them that night. He was almost sorry to take them out looking like that, they were far too sensuous looking and too appealing.
But he wasn't nearly as sorry as Olivia, sitting pressed into the corner of the car, hating the dress she'd been forced to wear, and furious with her sister.
When they arrived at the Astors' palatial home on Fifth Avenue, it was ablaze with light, and inside and out, it looked like a palace.
There were four hundred people there, and faces and names that the girls had only read about or heard of. The Goelets and the Gibsons were there, Prince Albert of Monaco, a French count, an English duke, and an assortment of minor nobles from other countries. All of the available New York "Astocracy was there, some who hadn't been out in years, like the Ellsworths who had been in seclusion for two years, since the death of their eldest daughter. A handful of survivors from the Titanic disaster the year I before were there, and some said it was literally the first time they had been out, which made Olivia think immediately of Charles Dawson.
She nodded to Madeleine Astor, who had lost her husband John when the ship went down, and she was looking exceptionally pretty. The baby she'd had after his father died was almost a year old now, and it saddened Olivia to think that he would never know his father.
"You're looking exceptionally well tonight." She heard a familiar voice and turned to see who it was, and was surprised to see Charles Dawson.
And then he laughed, "I know you're Miss Henderson, and I could pretend to know which one you are, but I'm afraid I don't, so you'll have to help me."
"Olivia, " she said with a slow smile, with a sudden mischievous temptation to pretend she was her sister, just to see if he would say anything different. "What are you doing here, Mr. Dawson?
" she asked with a smile. He had told her the night before he never went to parties.
"I hope you're telling me the truth, " he said, as though he knew what she had just been thinking about tacking him. "I shall just have to believe you. Actually, I was related to the Astors by marriage.
My late wife was the niece of our hostess, and she was very kind and insisted that I come. I'm not sure I would have, if it hadn't been for last night. You broke the ice for me, but I'm afraid this is rather more serious than I expected. It's an absolute madhouse, " not like their elegant little soiree of the night before, with a mere fifty people.
But the Astors' home accommodated the glittering crowd easily, and in fact Victoria had vanished the moment they entered.
Charles stayed and talked to Olivia for quite a while, they chatted about his son, and the few people Olivia knew there, and some she recognized, and then he said something about Madeleine Astor having been on the ship with his wife when it went down. He always looked so desperately sad when he talked about her, that it tore at Olivia's heart to see it. She had no idea what to say to him, and she suspected that it was a grief from which he might never recover. He seemed to be functioning, but there was a piece of him which was clearly so torn apart that it appeared as though it could never be mended.
"I assume your sister must be here tonight, " he said pleasantly.
"I haven't seen her."
"Neither have I. She disappeared as soon as we arrived. She's wearing the same awful dress, " Olivia said woefully, but at least in this crowd it didn't stick out, there were others like it, or even far more daring.
But Charles laughed at what she'd said.
"I take it you don't like it. It's very handsome though. Very, " he looked slightly embarrassed as he said it, "is grown-up' the wrong word to use with a young woman your age? "
"Inappropriate might be better.
I told Victoria I feel like a harlot.
She chose it, but I had it made in the first place, so she can blame me, and has. Worse yet, my father thinks it was my choice."
"Did he object? " Charles asked, amused, and she watched his eyes as they spoke. They were so deep and so green and so intriguing. And without meaning to, the crowd pushed her gently against him.
"No, he liked it." She made a face, referring to her father liking the dress she detested.
"Men always like women in red velvet, " Charles informed her. "I think it gives them the illusion of something wicked." Olivia nodded, hoping that in her sister's case it would be nothing more than an illusion.
Charles took her in to dinner eventually, and after a while he left her with a group of young ladies. He introduced Olivia to all of them, and hoped she was comfortable with them, when he went in search of his wife's cousins. He had already explained that his little boy was ill and he didn't want to stay late at the party. She was sorry to see him go, because the music had just started. And a few minutes later, she saw that her sister was one of the first on the floor, far too predictably in the arms of Toby. She watched them circle slowly around the floor in a slow, easy waltz, and then was shocked a little while later, to see them still there, and doing the brand-new foxtrot.
"Good lord, it's like seeing two of you, " one of the girls said, staring at her, fascinated by how much she looked like her twin sister.
She said she'd never seen anything like it. "Are you totally, totally alike in every way? " she asked, consumed with curiosity while Olivia smiled. It was always like this for them, people wanted to know what it was like being identical twin sisters.
"Pretty much. We're mirror twins. Things I have on the right, she has on the left. My right eyebrow goes up a bit, her left one does. My left foot is bigger, her right one is."
"What fun it must have been growing up, " another of the Astor cousins said. And two of the Rockefeller girls had joined them to listen.
Olivia had met one of them on the old Gould estate, and she had seen the other at a tea the Rockefellers had given in the music room at Kykuit.
All Olivia could remember about it was the incredible organ. Since the Rockefellers neither danced nor drank, they seldom gave grand parties the way the Vanderbilts and Astors did, but they often had small musical soirees, or lunches at Kykuit.
"Did you switch all the time? " one of the girls asked.
"No, " Olivia laughed. "Only when we wanted to get into mischief, or out of it. My sister hated taking exams in school, so I always took all of them for her. When we were very little, she kept talking me into taking her medicine for her, and I'd get very sick taking it for both of us, until the lady who took care of us caught on to what we were doing.
