“Oh?”
“Well, you know, Lucius has quite recently managed to turn up some information on some other interesting pieces you’ve sold. In fact I don’t think the buyers know quite how interesting they are. Twelve ‘Duncan Phyfe’ dining chairs, to Dallas?” he said, sipping at his champagne. “All that ‘important Sheraton’ to the buyer in Houston? And a great deal more of same in Los Angeles?”
I tried not to let my expression waver.
“ ‘Museum quality pieces.’ Of course—” including Mrs. Barbour in this—“we all know, don’t we, that ‘museum quality’ really depends the sort of museum you’re talking about. Ha ha! But Lucius has really done a very good job of following some of your more enterprising sales of late. And, once the holidays are over, he’s been thinking of taking a trip down to Texas to—Ah!” he said, turning from me with a deft little dance-like step as Kitsey, in ice-blue satin, swept in to greet us. “A welcome and ornamental addition indeed! You look lovely, my dear,” he said, leaning to kiss her. “I’ve just been talking to your charming husband-to-be. Really quite shocking, the friends in common we have!”
“Oh?” It was not until she actually turned to me—to look at me full-on, to peck me on the cheek—that I realized Kitsey hadn’t been a hundred percent sure that I would show up. Her relief at the sight of me was palpable.
“And are you giving Theo and Mommy all the scandal?” she said, turning back to Havistock.
“Oh, Kittycat, you are wicked.” Cozily, he slipped one arm through hers, and with the other reached over and patted her on the hand: a little Puritan-looking devil of a man, thin, amiable, spry. “Now, my dear, I see you are in need of a drink, as am I. Let’s wander off on our own, shall we?”—another glance back at me—“and find a nice quiet spot so we can have a good long gossip about your fiancé.”
xxxii.
“THANK HEAVENS HE’S GONE,” murmured Mrs. Barbour after they had wandered away to the drinks table. “Small chatter tires me terribly.”
“Same here.” The sweat was pouring off me. How had he found out? All the pieces he’d mentioned I’d shipped through the same carrier. Still—I was desperate for a drink—how could he know?
Mrs. Barbour, I was aware, had just spoken. “Excuse me?”
“I said, isn’t this extraordinary? I’m astonished by this great mob of people.” She was dressed very simply—black dress, black heels, and the magnificent snowflake brooch—but black was not Mrs. Barbour’s color and it only gave her a renunciate look of illness and mourning. “Must I mingle? I suppose I must. Oh, God, look, there’s Anne’s husband, what a bore. Is it very awful of me to say that I wish I were at home?”
“Who was that man just now?” I asked her.
“Havistock?” She passed her hand over her forehead. “I’m glad he is so insistent about his name or I would have had a hard time introducing you.”
“I would have thought he was a dear friend of yours.”
Unhappily she blinked, with a discomposure that made me feel guilty for the tone I’d taken with her.
“Well,” she said resolutely. “He is very familiar. That is to say—he has a very familiar manner. He is that way with everyone.”
“How do you know him?”
“Oh—Havistock does volunteer work for the New York Historical Society. Knows everything, and everyone. Although, just between us, I don’t think he’s a descendant of Washington Irving at all.”
“No?”
“Well—he’s altogether charming. That is to say, he knows absolutely everyone… claims an Astor connection as well as the Washington Irving one, and who’s to say he is wrong? Some of us have found it interesting that many of the connections he invokes are dead. That said, Havistock’s delightful, or can be. Very very good about visiting the old ladies—well, you heard him just now. Perfect trove of information about New York history—dates, names, genealogies. Before you came up, he was filling me in on the history of every single building up and down the street—all the old scandals—society murder in the townhouse next door, 1870s—he knows absolutely everything. That said, at a luncheon a few months ago he was regaling the table with an utterly scurrilous story about Fred Astaire which I don’t feel can possibly be true. Fred Astaire! Cursing like a sailor, throwing a fit! Well, I don’t mind telling you that I simply didn’t believe it—none of us did. Chance’s grandmother knew Fred Astaire back when she was working in Hollywood and she said he was simply the loveliest man alive. Never heard a whisper to the contrary. Some of the old stars were perfectly horrible, of course, and we’ve heard all those stories too. Oh,” she said despairingly, in the same breath, “how tired and hungry I feel.”