“Or who,” I said.
“That,” Cork said, “is the heart of the mystery.”
The snow started falling soon after dinner that night and kept falling into the dawn. By noon of the twenty-fourth, the wind had drifted nature’s white blanket into knee-high banks. When it finally stopped in the late afternoon, New York was well covered under a blotchy sky. The inclemency, however, did not deter attendance at the van Schooner Ball.
I had seen the van Schooner home from the road many times, and always marveled at its striking architecture, which is in the Palladio style. The main section is a three-story structure, and it is flanked by one-story wings at both sides.
The lights and music emanating from the north wing clearly marked it a ballroom of immense size. The front entrance to the main house had a large raised enclosure which people in these parts call a stoop. The interior was as rich and well appointed as any manse I have ever seen. The main hall was a gallery of statuary of the Greek and Roman cast, collected, I assumed, when the family took the mandatory Grand Tour.
Our outer clothes were taken at the main door, and we were escorted through a sculptured archway across a large salon towards the ballroom proper. We had purposely come late to avoid the reception line and any possible discovery by Dame van Schooner. We need not have bothered. There were more than two-hundred people there, making individual acquaintance impossible. Not that some of the guests were without celebrity. The Royal Governor was in attendance, and I saw General Seaton and Solomon deSilva, the fur king, talking with Reeves, the shipping giant.
It was difficult to determine the identity of the majority of the people, for most wore masks, although not all, including Cork and myself. Tell fluttered off on his social duties, and Cork fell to conversation with a man named Downs, who had recently returned from Spanish America and shared common friends there with the Captain.
I helped myself to some hot punch and leaned back to take in the spectacle. It would be hard to say whether the men or the women were the more lushly bedizened. The males were adorned in the latest fashion with those large and, to my mind, cumbersome rolled coat cuffs. The materials of their plumage were a dazzling mixture of gold and silver stuffs, bold brocades, and gaudy flowered velvets. The women, not to be outdone by their peacocks, were visions in fan-hooped gowns of silks and satins and fine damask. Each woman’s tête-de-mouton back curls swung gaily as her partner spun her around the dance floor to madcap tunes such as “Roger de Coverly,” played with spirit by a seven-piece ensemble. To the right of the ballroom entrance was a long table with three different punch bowls dispensing cheer.
The table was laden with all manner of great hams, glistening roast goose, assorted tidbit meats and sweets of unimaginable variety. Frothy syllabub was cupped up for the ladies by liveried footmen, while the gentlemen had their choice of Madeira, rum, champagne, or Holland gin, the last served in small crystal thimbles which were embedded and cooled in a silver bowl mounded with snow.
“This is most lavish,” I said to Cork when he disengaged himself from conversation with Downs. “It’s a good example of what diligent attention to industry can produce.”
“Whose industry, Oaks? Wealth has nothing more to do with industry than privilege has with merit. Our hostess, over there, does not appear to have ever perspired in her life.”
He was true to the mark in his observation, for Dame van Schooner, who stood chatting with the Governor near the buffet, was indeed as cold as fine-cut crystal. Her well formed face was sternly beautiful, almost arrogantly defying any one to marvel at its handsomeness and still maintain normal breathing.
“She is a fine figure of a woman, Captain, and, I might add, a widow.”
He gave me a bored look and said, “A man would die of frostbite in her bedchamber. Ah, Major Tell, congratulations! You are a master at the jig!”
“It’s a fantastical do, but good for the liver, I’m told. Has the mysterious sender of your invitation made herself known to you?”
“Not as yet. Is that young lady now talking with the Dame one of her daughters?”
“Both of them are daughters. The one lifting her mask is Gretchen, and I might add, the catch of the year. I am told she has been elected Queen of the Ball, and will be crowned this evening.”
The girl was the image of her mother. Her sister, however, must have followed the paternal line.
“The younger one is Wilda,” Tell went on, “a dark pigeon in her own right, but Gretchen is the catch.”
“Catch, you say.” I winked at Cork. “Perhaps her bedchamber would be warmer?”
“You’ll find no purchase there, gentlemen,” Tell told us. “Along with being crowned Queen, her betrothal to Brock van Loon will probably be announced this evening.”
“Hand-picked by her mother, no doubt?” Cord asked.
“Everything is hand-picked by the Dame. Van Loon is a stout fellow, although a bit of a tailor’s dummy. Family is well landed, across the river, in Brueckelen. Say, they’re playing ‘The Green Cockade,’ Captain. Let me introduce you to Miss Borden, one of our finest steppers.”
I watched them walk over to a comely piece of frippery, and then Cork and the young lady stepped onto the dance floor. “The Green Cockade” is one of Cork’s favorite tunes, and he dances it with gusto.
I drifted over to the serving table and took another cup of punch, watching all the time for some sign from our mysterious “hostess,” whoever she was. I mused that the calamity mentioned in the note might well have been pure hyperbole, for I could not see how any misfortune could befall this wealthy, joyous home.
With Cork off on the dance floor, Tell returned to my side and offered to find a dance partner for me. I declined, not being the most nimble of men, but did accept his bid to introduce me to a lovely young woman named Lydia Daws-Smith. The surname declared her to be the offspring of a very prominent family in the fur trade, and her breeding showed through a delightfully pretty face and pert figure. We were discussing the weather when I noticed four footmen carrying what appeared to be a closed sedan chair into the hall and through a door at the rear.
“My word, is a sultan among the assemblage?” I asked my companion.
“The sedan chair?” She giggled from behind her fan. “No, Mr. Oaks, no sultan. It’s our Queen’s throne. Gretchen will be transported into the hall at the stroke of midnight, and the Governor will proclaim her our New Year’s Sovereign.” She stopped for a moment, the smile gone. “Then she will step forward to our acclaim, and of course, mandatory idolatry.”
“I take it you do not like Gretchen very much, Miss Daws-Smith.”
“On the contrary, sir. She is one of my best friends. Now you will have to excuse me, for I see Gretchen is getting ready for the crowning, and I must help her.”
I watched the young girl as she followed Gretchen to the rear of the hall, where they entered a portal and closed the door behind them. Seconds later, Lydia Daws-Smith came back into the main hall and spoke with the Dame, who then went through the rear door.
Cork had finished his dance and rejoined me. “This exercise may be good for the liver,” he said, “but it plays hell with my thirst. Shall we get some refills?”
We walked back to the buffet table to slake his thirst, if that were ever possible. From the corner of my eye I caught sight of the Dame reentering the hall from the rear door. She crossed over to the Governor and was about to speak to him, when the orchestra struck up another tune. She seemed angry at the intrusion into what was obviously to have been the beginning of the coronation. But the Dame was ladylike and self-contained until the dancing was over. She then took a deep breath and nervously adjusted the neckline of her dress, which was shamefully bare from the bodice to the neck.