3. Shadows
"A tea party?" Blair screwed up her face as she screwed up a wad of deep brown hair, pushing her lips forward into a pout. "I know I've been in social confinement, but since when do your parties not include hallucinogens?"
Serena flushed. "That was one time."
"What was that that Eric gave to me?"
"Something he picked up at school, who knows. And you have to admit you enjoyed that party."
Her friend didn't reply.
"B, you know I didn't mean that."
"It's perfectly alright. I'm perfectly alright." A strand or two fell to frame her cheekbones and coincidentally exclude her expression from sight. Blair avoided her own gaze for a while longer, then inquired, "And just who is coming to this tea party? Other than everyone you know, everyone of consequence, everyone you met at the dressmakers' once and liked –"
"Isabel is in England with her lord," Serena retorted smoothly. "And Kati has gone with them in the hope of finding one, so Penelope Needhold will be upholding that set; though I'm not sure about Nelly, she loathes her sister-in-law nowadays. The lovely Miss Carr is in the very early stages of the family way –" She tarried but a second over that fateful phrase. "So her presence is anyone's guess. All the Vanderbilts and Vanderbecks and van der Leydens and van der Woodsens and van Allens. The Wetmores, the Smiths, the de Fois children. Most importantly, the very best of the Waldorfs will be there." Her skin seemed to hold a tinge of golden Newport summer all year round, and Blair smiled at their reflections in the three-way mirror and tried not to compare her own pallid limbs to the glowing arm which wound around her waist and squeezed.
"It won't be long," she said quietly. "It won't be long, S, until I can take care of myself again. Everyone questions what becomes of the lily maids of Astolat when their Lancelots find Guineveres, and the answer is simple: they heal. They grow up. They don't all die."
"You were grown up already, darling." Lily van der Woodsen swept into the room on a wave of pale fuchsia, smiling as serenely as a motherly angel as the two girls jumped. "And not so prone to this drama, drama, drama that Serena so espouses." She glided closer and took Blair's face between her two hands. "You are taking your iron tonic, aren't you?"
"It wasn't a –"
"I know what it was and what it wasn't, young lady, but you're altogether too wan and washed out for my liking. Take the iron tonic, and I'll send down to the greenhouse for something special for you for tea. Let the others get dizzy and silly on cake and comfits; you and I shall dine elegantly upon salad and regain our strength."
"Are you ill?"
"Low spirits," Lily replied portentously, then somewhat spoiled the effect with a wink. She kissed her daughter's friend twice on each cheek, and then she kissed her daughter. Everyone knew she had a new lover, but they hadn't quite worked out who it was yet. Even Serena didn't know and Eric, now back at school and far away from the intrigue, had no idea whatsoever. How low class must he be, that she wouldn't even have arrive at the opera on his arm? All the van der Woodsens lived for drama, drama, drama, Blair concluded, and this tea party would be just the place to begin a new act of her own.
They called it heartbreak, this aftermath of jagged pieces with her body wrapped around to keep them inside. The truth, however, was that she hurt in her whole body, an ache which transcended emotion and became physical, rooted in a place far deeper and darker than her heart. What if she never got over him, caught herself staring at him out of windows forever? True, she could discourse about healing and growing up and take iron tonic for the cramps in her belly and salad to settle her stomach, but around him she was just a weak little girl. Above all things, Blair abhorred weakness. She hated it in others, but most of all, she hated it in herself. She loathed the girl in the green dress, the girl who'd swayed on her feet as she met his gaze through the glass. Even the part of her that had considered wanting a child seemed pathetic in the light of another day, a day without blood and rain and the realisation of loneliness.
She wouldn't, couldn't be this way forever. She wouldn't die and float down the river to his feet.
But she would wear white for martyrdom.
For virginity.
For a soon to be bride-to-be.
~#~
…the truth is not that either of us is particularly kind or cruel, but that the barbarism I am reduced to without you to temper the baser parts of my nature shines brighter than any spirit of charity I might yet possess…
Chuck swore as Jenny threw a cushion at his head.
"Get up. Up!"
She was perhaps within her rights since he was in her dressing room, sprawled uncomfortably across a spindly silk covered chaise he was surprised could even take his weight. He'd been lying on his back when she entered, paper suspended above and before his eyes so he could check for any necessary additions, and now sat up and directed a glare in her direction.
"I hope you don't plan on taking off your clothes."
"Why?"
"I've already done my vomiting for this morning."
"Then you won't mind me." Her tone was brisk but her movements attempted allure as she stripped to the skin and ran for her made. Chuck loathed the very sight of her, for all she possessed the accoutrements of fashion and womanhood: he hated the sight of ribs which were visible through the translucent skin of her back, of breasts which were disproportionate to her figure by the use of unguents and a queer little doctor who visited twice a week. He hated her hair, bleached to the palest blonde by the application of lemon and peroxide, and he hated the way she made sure to draw the arch of her brows and curve of her mouth rather than risk lines by demonstrating genuine interest or joy. He hated her, in short, as much as a numb man could hate anything. It was she who kept him like a tiger in a pen, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of domestication.
"See something you like?"
"I never was one for peep shows," Chuck said roughly as Elise came through a door in the panelling and started upon seeing him.
"Ignore Mr Bass, Elise," Jenny instructed her maid. "He's here as a connoisseur of art, so I'd like something purple today. Purple is my husband's favourite colour, you know."
Purple was his favourite colour, but he focused doggedly upon his letter and imagined a blue ball gown and a green day dress, peonies with petals that curled soft pink like a baby's toes. There were some days when he deeply wished he'd left Blair altered irrevocably with the seed of them both growing insider her – then she'd have no choice but to make terms with him. He was aware that she would be ruined, worthless in society's terms, but then he could've claimed her and married her. As it was, the truth had dawned slowly: Jenny had sent the engagement announcement to the papers before he'd even arrived back at the hotel, certain of his capitulation. Blair had grieved for him, or else lain abed for weeks hating him, and now she was out once more and ready to take her place as queen.
She was free, and he was not, so in layman's terms, she had won.
What a strange victory that must be.
Jenny preened in blissful silence, admiring her pinched and pulled figure in a purple velvet shirtwaist and black overstitched skirt. A trail of jet beads chattered on the floorboards as she moved, and she wasted at least a quarter of an hour tipping her miniature top hat this way and that, trying to decide on the most becoming angle.
"You might consider a bag over your head."
"You might consider manners."
"My father did well enough to escape the sewer, darling wife, while you still seem content to paddle in shit."
"Must you be so coarse?"
"Divorce me," he drawled. "I beg of you. Tell them I beat you, or I can't get it up, since the former is occasionally my desire and the latter is a side-effect of even looking at you. At least have an affair and leave me to mine."
"You'll never have an affair with Blair Waldorf," was her riposte, spiteful but shrewd. "One day, she may let you sigh over her to pay you back, but she'll never allow herself to be set up in a house in the country and bear your children. You remind me often enough how much higher above the salt she sits than me, and a girl like that would never stoop so low as to be your mistress."
"I'm amazed she stooped to being your mistress."
"I'm the mistress of this house now," Jenny stated with satisfaction. "And we're presently due at a party, ring Arthur for a fresh suit."
"What party?"
"A tea party."
Chuck's face could barely counterfeit interest, but he accomplished a curl of the lip. "No one worth knowing has tea parties," he responded coldly and left the room to seek his valet, kicking the doorpost on the way out in frustration at the woman who adjusted her hat for the umpteenth time and allowed herself a small but triumphant wriggle.
~#~
"…and we hear that Miss Carr will soon be sporting dresses in the style known as Empire…"
"No!"
"How shocking!"
"You'd think Mr Boardman would keep a mistress more discreetly."
"Is there any way to keep mistress discreetly?" There was a ghost of Blair's smile on the rim of her teacup as she gave a catty little laugh. Gossip was what these people drew breath for, and it was gossip that would win her back her place among them once again. "I suppose he might've shut her up in the country, but what would be the fun in that for the…gentleman? Heaven knows he must need some respite from the constant bickering of his wife and daughter."
"Mrs B and Miss Emma?"
"How shocking!"
"You'd think they'd do it more discreetly."
And so the scandals ran on in concentric circles, within and inside one another unto the kernel of blackness at the centre that nobody wanted to acknowledge: that Miss Emma Boardman was spoilt and ungrateful because her mother never gave her any time, that Mrs Elizabeth Boardman snuck out at night like a young girl to intrigue with the lover she'd met while touring Switzerland ten years earlier. Nobody cared, though, and nor should they, for it was neither their problem nor truly their business. They only ever made it their business to snicker about in dark corners, but not so far that they began to wonder about the rights and wrongs of it all.
For then society would unravel, and who would be left to drink tea with?
Small puffs of downy white feathers flared around Blair's shoulders before running down her arm in a simple sleeve, pure white like the rest of the dress, pure white lace like the line around her throat. She wore around her wrist something she hadn't since lending it to Jenny: the white gold bracelet her father had gifted her for cotillion, a slender line of shine with an understated diamond at its centre. It glittered every time she raised her arm and, lowering her lashes, Blair fancied she did too. Her slight vanity was shared by a Mr James, seated beside her with his eyes on those darting lashes.
"I'd cherish a nagging wife," said he.
"Really?"
"Really."
"That, I find hard to believe." Blair's riposte had more than a touch of purr in it as she neatly laid down her knife and fork and began, "In my experience, gentlemen at first like to be nagged out of jealousy – I don't want you to see her, I want you all to myself – and then don't, and it's jealousy again that drives them into the arms of other women – why are you always late, how can I trust you anymore, etcetera. Nagging lovers are far more attractive than nagging wives."
"Have you a nagging lover, Miss Waldorf?"
"My conscience nags me not to take a lover," she replied piously. "More for the sake of that poor young man than myself, since I believe I should do no nagging and leave him to his own devices, and he would feel quite neglected and become dreadfully depressed."
"And passionately throw himself off the top of a cliff."
"If he could find one in New York."
The surrounding ladies and gentlemen tittered politely as a few footmen slid in to remove their plates and a few more slid out to attend to other parts of the house. Blair's attempt at flirtation hadn't been very funny but, as an invalid recently returned from seclusion, she was to be humoured in all things, and thereafter lauded for being her celebrated self once again. There never was such a good girl as Miss Blair Waldorf, who sat prettily in her snow maiden's gown and announced, "In any case, I doubt I'd fall for a man with little enough character to be driven to suicide over me."
The double doors opened behind her.
"So you're a rationalist?"
"Romance and all its environs – the letters, the pleas, the lovelorn sighs – are the most preposterous and impractical things I've ever heard of."
"I've known many a woman led to contemplation of soft rain and the street below by letters and pleas." The voice was dark, the sentiment behind it darker still. She tasted iron on her tongue, the iron Lily had prescribed to fortify her as she bit it, tongue coated red as her lips blanched of colour behind their demure pink paint. He was angry and she could sense it, raising the hair on her arms even before she turned her head and saw the flat line of his mouth, the noble jaw of that ignoble face set like stone. She would've given anything in the world to stop her heart and die then, which was hardly rational, but which would be an undoubtedly good excuse for breaking the rules of the game they were playing, the game where whoever stopped staring lost.
"Mr Bass and Mrs Bass." Serena was every inch the hostess in her contrasting black to Blair's white, standing with her spine laced into straightness and her fingers folded precisely. "Will you both take tea?"
Jenny's smile was tart. "Tea," she repeated, and took a seat at a table as far away from Blair as possible. Chuck followed after, and the gloss on his velvet collar made Blair ponder its texture, then shiver at the thought of the material rubbing the wrong way against her skin.
Eventually, every player will discover which game they're playing; so went the laws of Nature. Serena didn't regret stacking the deck, loading the dice, weighting the wheel, but she was victim to a pang every time Blair deliberately didn't look at her. To Serena, love was something that couldn't and shouldn't be ignored, and trying to avoid it would only do her friend more harm. She only had to watch Jenny watching Chuck watching Blair to understand the complexity and confusion that would only continue if she countenanced their behaviour. She wasn't sure whether she'd expected fight or flight or reunion, even with the presence of his wife, but Blair seemed fixated upon her conversation with Mr James and Chuck seemed fixated upon Blair. It could be a matter of provocation, but how to go about properly goading her friend…with the utmost delicacy, of course.
She did mean well.
That meant things ought to go well.
"You raise an interesting point, Mr Bass," Serena remarked as she sipped at a glass of mineral water. "Have the ladies of your acquaintance all been very romantic in comparison to Miss Waldorf?" She winced as a foot struck her ankle beneath the table and beneath her skirts, though Blair's expression didn't change.
Those enigmatic eyes rolled around to Serena's, moving with a reluctant languor. "I don't believe there is any woman in the world resistant to romance. You're bred on it as much as men are bred on buying and selling and the idea of acquisition."
"I don't believe there is any man in the world who doesn't enjoy the thought of acquisition," Blair interjected with a fierce upward thrust of her chin, much to the surprise of Mr James on her left and Mrs van Allen on her right. "You are all bred on the idea, yes, and so possession appeals in just the way that romance purportedly does to women. Where the sexes divide is upon the point of maintenance: we keep cats and dogs and canaries because we can care for them after the initial 'conquering', as I suppose you might call it. We don't keep them on our mantels or in glass boxes to show off to our friends, like the first dollar ever made by one's business. We love them quite naturally and instinctually; show me a man who could do the same."
"Show me a woman who remains constant in that care," Chuck rebutted, still languid in his movements but no longer in his gaze. "When one breed of dog is in fashion, you walk it in the park and meet other ladies with the same dog and exclaim over what a coincidence it is that you all have the same taste in dogs. The next week, your pet goes out of style so you buy another of a 'better' breed, or a new muff, or gloves with a particular kind of stitching. Men are as constant in the desires they had as younger men no matter their age, and don't bend in the wind like prettily dressed reeds. Your rationalist doctrine must accept that as being reasonable, as a natural function of the human heart, even if there are romantic connotations to it."
"I don't know about the human heart. I've scarcely encountered any truly 'human' organs."
"Then that may be indicative of some secret within your own."
Chatter broke out around the succession of small tables, first at the dangerous nature of the topic, then dissolving into a chorus of, "Have you a secret, Miss Waldorf? Who is it about? Is it about me? Is it about you? Does Mr Bass know it? Does Mrs Bass know it? Oh, do tell!"
Her hand closed in a hard fist over her stomach, as if she might vomit. She was exquisite like that, Serena reflected, dark and hunted like a beautiful doe. She was split between remorse and pleasure as Blair excused herself and Chuck shadowed her without so much as a bow to the assembled company. In deference to them and their privacy, the consummate hostess called for attention and for cards to be brought as a distraction. If anyone was not to be distracted, however, it was Jenny Bass. She observed both exits, examined her spotless gloves, and said absolutely nothing for a good few minutes until the tinge of pink had retreated from her cheeks.
"Blair."
"Go away."
"Blair."
"Go."
It was implausible that it had only been a few months since his saying her name had been enough to stop her in her tracks, to turn her around and make her fall towards him even when she was too proud to take a conscious step. Now she stalked into the cloakroom and pulled her mink down from a peg, clenching the fur too tightly for a second or two before dragging it over her back and around her shoulders.
"There is no obligation for you to be here, Mr Bass," she told him sharply. "No one requires your services."
"I'm obligated to defend romance over reason, it seems."
"And I'm obligated to champion reason as the last defence of the female."
"I'm not going to slap some sense into you, if that's what you're worried about."
Blair cast a glance back at him over her shoulder, her mouth pink and full like a wound and a trap. "I don't worry about you touching me. I don't have to worry about you touching me ever again, and I consider that a happy outcome." She pulled the coat closed over her dress, unconsciously stroking a sore spot on her belly as she did so.
He noticed.
"You're not –"
"No."
"I wish you were."
"I'm glad I'm not."
"Are you?" She could hear it now, feel it, the lines of pain running through his voice and through her like disquieting zaps of electricity. She might've known it was there all along. "Have you really found peace in what we've become, in my marriage, in this separation, in…look at me!" A jerk on her wrist brought her abruptly round, close enough that the supple blonde fur of her mink brushed against his shirtfront, that she had to tilt back her head to try and translate the mess in his face into words. Blair's lips parted and then closed again, neither asking to be kissed nor threatening to bite. This was still Chuck, for all he wasn't hers and she didn't allow herself to dream of acquisition. It would be easy, she knew, to fall down. To fall back in. Oh, how she longed to fall back in and live with him inside the mess, for all it was he who had thrown her down.
But she had wasted time enough playing the lily maid. Powerful women didn't permit their hearts to lead them back to the battlefield.
"I know you felt it. I know you feel it right now."
Never had she been so glad of the cold, of the lace crawling up over her clavicle and down past her wrists. Never had she found so much of interest in her pretty white gloves, in the darts delineating her slender fingers; they were her armour, her sword and shield since she had nothing she could actually swing at him.
"I don't want to see you anymore." She spoke to the hand now wrapped so very strangely, so very gently around hers. "I don't want to speak to you anymore." There was a flash of movement out of the corner of her right eye and Blair yanked her arm back, stating with a pride and certainty she couldn't quite manage to feel, "We're quite done."
"Quite done," Chuck repeated.
"Yes."
"You want nothing more to do with me."
"Yes."
"And what you want to say next is that I'm married and behaving improperly, and behaving cruelly to my wife and cruelly to you, the possession I was only interested in acquiring and to whom I could never be constant."
"You used me." Despite the silence in the cloakroom, Blair's voice was barely a murmur. "You and only you know how to torture me as I once did you, and you decided to take revenge on me for that. Simply making me unmarriageable wasn't enough, but my falling in love with you only to be abandoned was just deserts." He no longer held her hand but they were still too close for comfort, and she drew her the hem of martyr's dress back from him so the rest of her could follow. "Maybe it was. Maybe I deserved it. But I don't deserve this, Chuck."
"This?"
"How can you pretend ignorance?" Her countenance was brilliant, containing within it some kind of pure vindication which brought the taste of bile to Chuck's throat. "The letters, the visits, the way you still pull on me like a kite string! As you said, you're married. As I said, we're quite done." She swallowed. "I don't love you anymore. If you plan to keep playing the game to guarantee my downfall, I assure you: it takes more than even you to destroy Blair Waldorf."
"My resolve to destroy you was never very strong," he responded. "At the outset, it's true, I wanted to see you broken and begging, because…because there never was a man in California, Blair, but a shadow. There never is a man when he has no match in you, never a sentient being that can feel and understand, that can sleep or eat or function, and yet you think that every moment was nothing more than a ruse. Do you not think I feel it crawling under my skin? The honest to God truth that I damaged you, and it will never be my business to fix you ever again? But if there were the slightest chance that you were lying…" Chuck silently took her hand again and held it still, her pulse fluttering like a frightened bird within the cage of his fingers. "Is it possible you still love me?"
This time, she didn't draw back. She was no longer trembling.
Her eyes were black in the gloom.
"How could I still love you after what you did?"
He let her go. He let her go, but the question came again when she had gone, again at night on the uncomfortable couch, again and again every time he woke up between bouts of clear liquid and white powder to vomit or turf Jenny out of his study once again. One thought clung throughout these weak periods of consciousness, surfacing at the end of a lighter spell to resound and become coherent: constancy. Care after acquisition. Natural love.
He was going to have to get a dog.
So, my first attempt at a schedule went a bit wrong...sorry for this being a little later than expected. Thanks to: flipped, busybee90us2003, fiona249, Eternally Romantic, MegamiTenchi, Laura, BellaB2010, SaturnineSunshine, tinamarie333, Nicole Lovely, blair4eva, L, ggloverxx19, abelard, lulubelle2010, Stella296, aliceeeebeth, B, dreamgurl, teddy bear, acciojackoconnell, nostalgiakills, notoutforawalk, Avschick33, Nikki999, Lizzie0920rb and Maribells.
