the age of dissonance (2/?)
Dan, Blair, Serena. Appearances by everyone.
4997 words. PG.
A re-working of Wharton's The Age of Innocence.
Summary: Dan wonders just how he has become so invested in the fate of this girl who never even liked him.
Part One
Note: As with last time, some stuff is obvs stolen from the original novel, mainly some dialogue and lines here or there.
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Dan arrives at the ball late, duty driving his steps more than desire and the entire affair made more tedious by that fact. He enjoys balls almost less than the opera and the company of the Basses least of all; the fact that he must also put his life up on the public stage hardly helps his mood. He can nearly hear the whispering already, everyone wondering how the Rhodes could have allowed Serena to choose him of all people.
But this is a good thing in its own way, he reminds himself. If the gossip centers around Serena and himself instead – and their perfectly innocent courtship – then Madame Grimaldi is relieved of it another day.
The Basses' home, where the ball is held year after year on opera night, is one of the few in New York to possess a ball-room. The Basses' home is one of the few in New York to possess any number of similarly gorgeous, similarly useless things: a ball-room used once a year, china and silver touched only at Christmas, costly and sought-after paintings shoved to shadowy third-floor landings to make room for yet more costly ones. Their money is nearly as new as Dan's and they make up for it with flash and pomp.
Mrs. Bass, formerly Miss Charlotte Rhodes, had come up a penniless beauty from Florida and was introduced to society by her cousin, Dan's very own fiancée. She'd shown quite a lot of promise until she surprised everyone by marrying Chuck Bass, the snide and slick son of a much more impressive businessman. Chuck Bass had been known in his youth for his dalliances, often explained away by his frustrated and impatient father as the mistakes of the young, habits Chuck was sure to grow out of. Chuck had married under duress from his father to the prettiest girl who would have him, with everyone's hope being that it would jolt him into being a more settled young man. It did, for a year or so; he followed his father into business, behaved for a little while, and then, upon his father's passing, returned rapidly to a past he'd supposedly left behind. Now most nights he could be found on his way to houses of ill-repute, or at the very least one house in particular, that of his mistress.
Yet here they all are gathered in his ball-room, because it is so very splendid and fine.
Bass is the controlling sort and his touch shows more in the house than his wife's. Dan notices Bass' favored deep purples echoing throughout the carpeting and upholstery as he passes through the main hall. Dan is tempted to visit the library, a room even he must admit is stunningly styled and stocked, and probably entered only on that rare once-a-year occasion that Dan steps into it. However, he knows Serena is awaiting him, so he passes by its heavy, glossy wooden door and into the gallery that leads its pretty way down to the ball-room. Dan rolls his eyes minutely as he takes in the art decorating his walk; another clear mark of Chuck Bass in the audacious and inappropriate nudes hanging right there in plain sight.
Hands clasped behind his back, Dan nods in mild greeting to Mr and Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt as he tries not to hurry too quickly on. He'd like to have the night over with as soon as he can manage it and return to the sanctity of his study, his books, his quiet and complete solitude.
Finally his gaze alights on Serena standing a few feet from the ball-room entrance with her mother at her side, flowers clutched in one arm and the other held aloft to show the ring on her finger to a crowd of eager girls. She sees Dan, offering him an embarrassed smile. He returns it softly, noticing as he does that the Countess is conspicuously absent. One by one the congratulatory girls in their fluffy tulle notice his arrival, offering him pleasantries they'd never bothered to offer before and spinning off to join the dancing, leaving him to take Serena's hand.
"I've done as you asked," she says, hand tucked now into the bend of his arm. "They were all terribly jealous."
"Of all the fine gifts you'll receive and dresses you'll get to wear, no doubt," he says.
Serena smiles. "Of my very handsome young man," she corrects as they take their place amongst the other dancers.
"If anyone is jealous," Dan tells her, "it is everyone in this room of me, for I've got the prettiest girl in New York in my arms."
Indeed, there is real disappoint on the face of nearly all the single (and even some of the married) men in the room when their eyes catch Serena and the charming swish of her skirts, the pretty line of her arm, the curls falling against her tender throat. Her smile is the brightest in the room, all sunshine and all for Dan.
After the dance is finished, they continue on to the conservatory, seeking a private moment amongst the plants.
"I wish it hadn't had to be done at a ball," Dan admits, leading her towards a bench nestled in pink flowers.
"I know," Serena says with a touch of her own reluctance, though she is far from possessing Dan's distaste for the frippery of these events. "But it was the right thing to do and now that it's done we can turn all our thoughts to the future."
"Yes." He smiles a little. "You are right."
"I know how very much you value your privacy," she says, gloved hand wrapping around his. "But even here we are alone together, aren't we? In fact –" She shoots a quick look around and must find their privacy satisfactory, for she leans in and presses a furtive kiss to his mouth. Dan laughs in surprise, cheeks reddening like a schoolboy. She is always surprising him; he think it's what he loves best of her.
Still, it leaves him strangely shy, perhaps because it's her, perhaps because the only kisses they've shared prior have been to hands or cheeks, or otherwise in complete secrecy, stolen and hidden. Anyone could have seen her just now, the daring girl.
She lays an affectionate hand to his flushed cheek, glove cool against his skin. "Did you speak to my cousin?" she asks, a gentle nudge towards more practical matters.
"Oh," he says. He'd felt too odd about doing so after their conversation – her flat unfamiliar tone, the resignation in her eyes. "No, I – I hadn't the chance after all."
Serena frowns slightly; more perplexed than disappointed, he thinks. "Ah. You must, then, for I didn't either. I shouldn't like her to think –"
"Of course not." He gives a little nod. "But aren't you the person to do it, really?"
"Yes," Serena agrees, "If it had been done at the right time. Now I think you ought to explain that I'd asked you to do it at the Opera before we told everyone here, lest she thinks she's been forgotten. Blair has always been very sensitive, you know, especially in matters such as these."
"Of course, of course," he says. "You are right, my dear. But I haven't seen her yet – has she come tonight?"
"No, at the last minute she decided not to."
"At the last minute?"
"Yes. It was rather a surprise, as she's always been so fond of balls and of dancing, but she felt she didn't look smart enough. Which is silly, she looked lovely, but she was not to be convinced."
Dan breathes a little sigh of relief. He sees that Blair Grimaldi is as sharp as she ever was and, in choosing not to attend, she did his announcement one better: she took herself off that public stage Dan loathes so very much, saving herself from further talk without Dan having to do a thing for her.
She had always been a rather capable girl, hadn't she.
The next day is taken up with engagement visits, from Dan's home to Serena's and then on to the imposing house of Mrs Rhodes and rather amusing lady within. The snide and supercilious manner for which she was long known has faded over the course of old age and numerous illnesses, her sharpness settling into cutting humor. She was often too weak to leave her home to mingle with society and so demanded society come to her, which, despite the lackluster meals often served at her table, was a command they were simply too intimidated not to obey.
The Countess, Dan learned, was staying with Mrs Rhodes but they were all very glad to arrive and find her luckily out.
"Your father must write one of his delightful little ditties for the occasion, Mr Humphrey," Mrs Rhodes says, eyes twinkling. "If he could balance his no doubt strenuous responsibilities to the stage and spare a moment for it."
Serena giggles. "Granny, you're horrid," she says. "And you haven't even looked at my ring yet."
"Ah, yes, of course, darling." She snaps her fingers for the maid, who scurries forward to add a generous amount of gin to Mrs Rhodes' teacup – which causes Serena's mother to give an ill-concealed roll of the eyes. "Why, what a lovely ring," she exclaims, taking Serena's hand between her own frail ones. "Who would have suspected a songwriter's son of having such fine taste in jewels."
Dan laughs a little. "Oh, I just picked whatever shined the brightest," he says.
"Though nothing's so bright as my dear Serena, hm?" she says, giving Serena's hand one last pat before releasing it. "Now when's the wedding to be?"
"As soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me up, Mrs Rhodes," Dan says, shooting a smile Serena's way.
"I think a long engagement is best," interrupts Mrs van der Woodsen, folding her hands in her lap.
"Oh, Lily," Mrs Rhodes says, "When did you ever think a long engagement was best?"
Mrs van der Woodsen colors slightly with irritation. The topic of Lily van der Woodsen's various marriages is a rare one, only jested at by her mother in public and her daughter in private. "Well, Mother, that's my point. They must have time to get to know each other."
"Oh, pish," Mrs Rhodes says. "They know each other well enough already. Everyone in New York already knows everyone! Don't wait, my dear; time is fleeting, especially for an old girl such as myself, and I want to give the wedding breakfast."
Though this is, of course, an expected offer, the round of expected gratitude is so exuberant it almost drowns out the sound of the door, and with it Madame Grimaldi's soft steps, followed soon after by louder, brasher ones.
"Bass!" exclaims Mrs Rhodes, interest and mild humorous distaste in her tone. "What on earth has brought you to my doorstep?"
Serena moves to greet the Countess as Chuck Bass steps forward for a brisk handshake. "I met the Countess in Madison Square and she was good enough to let me walk home with her."
He is soon dragged into conversation with the old woman, who had a way of sinking her teeth into a talk in such a way as to make it difficult for her partner to exit the conversation. In doing so she quite forgets her relatives, who begin the drift towards the door, Dan quiet again while Serena and her mother chat to the Countess. Then the van der Woodsen women are being helped into their cloaks and Dan finds himself facing Madame Grimaldi's small, almost disingenuous smile.
He remembers that he is yet to have his conversation with her. "You know about Serena and I?" he says, embarrassed. "I was meant to tell you at the Opera – Serena quite scolded me for failing in my duty – but I just found I couldn't, in that crowd."
Her smile turns a touch more honest, but is undercut by the faintly sardonic lift of her brow. The gesture reminds him suddenly of her younger self, that dismissive Blair Waldorf of days past. "I understand," she says. "One doesn't tell such things first in a crowd."
"Yes," he agrees with a slight inclination of his head. Then he falls silent, awkwardly aware that he has never had anything to say to her.
"Are you waiting for congratulations, Mr Humphrey?" she asks – and if he didn't know better, he'd almost think there was something playful in her tone.
"Oh, I…hadn't thought of it," he says. "But yes, of course – come, Countess, aren't you glad to see your dear friend settled?"
Her eyes seem darker in the dimness of the hall, and her face all the paler; he realizes she wears no rouge or paint on her lips as she had at the opera and it leaves a distinctly gray cast to her countenance. Despite it, he couldn't say she didn't look well – no, he corrects himself, always a particular man when it comes to words, not well – but there is something still compelling there, in those eyes so dark in her pale face.
"Glad, yes…" she trails off. "Anyway, she seems to like you a great deal, so what else am I to say in the matter?"
Dan gives a disbelieving little laugh. "I do believe you were told to be kind to me," he says.
"Was I?" Her other eyebrow lifts to mirror the first. "As you might already be able to tell, I'm rather awful at doing what I'm told."
"Then I might offer congratulations to you," Dan says. "You've managed something no one else of your set ever has."
For the first time in his memory, she looks at him as though he's interesting. But Serena and her mother are already half out the door, and Dan is drawn along with them.
"Good-bye," Madame Grimaldi offers, giving them a smile before her eyes find Dan again. "Do come and see me sometime."
It's only a few days after that Nate Archibald returns from his prolonged European excursion with his new wife beside him. He is welcomed home, accordingly, by a small dinner of family and friends ready to hear what the young couple had seen and with whom they'd visited. Dan attends alone, as Serena is caught up tending to his grandmother through some minor sickness or other. He'd like to bring his family along just for the support, but the Vanderbilts have yet to warm to the entire Humphrey clan, merely granting Dan special permission due to Nate's friendship with him.
Nate is very happy and very brown from the sun, full of tales of hiking and swimming.
"It sounds a perfect horror," Dan jokes. "Did you take in even a little bit of culture? One painting – a postcard of a painting?"
"Nope, not a whit, not a one," Nate says cheerfully.
Dan wonders if anyone has told him of the Countess' return. Though he supposes it doesn't matter very much, or it shouldn't, because Nate and Penelope are doing so well, the happiest newlyweds Dan has yet encountered.
"I hear congratulations are in order for you," Nate says. "Finally got Serena to agree, did you?"
"Got her mother to agree, more like," Dan says dryly.
"Ah, you'll grow on her," Nate says confidently. "Or you won't, but either way you have achieved your goal."
Dan laughs, clapping Nate on the back as they make their way into the dining room.
"I'm only sorry we missed the ball," Penelope says once dinner is underway. "There were so many wonderful diversions in Europe, but I do look forward to it every year." A beat passes and her real reason for bringing it up emerges. "I heard Blair Grimaldi returned in our absence; was she at the ball?"
To his credit, there was barely a perceptible change to Nate's expression at the sound of Blair's name. (Dan imagines he is not the only one who noticed Penelope purposefully leaving off Blair's title.)
"No, no, thank goodness," says Mrs Archibald, Nate's mother. "She had that decency."
"Perhaps the Basses don't approve of her," suggests Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt.
"Mrs Bass may not," William Vanderbilt allows. "But Bass certainly does, to absolutely no one's surprise; she was seen walking up Fifth Avenue with him in broad daylight."
There was a murmur of shock through the table.
"I don't see why we ought to speak of Blair tonight," Nate says (and Penelope visibly bristles at his familiar use of her name). There's no venom in his voice at all, which is like Nate; he simply doesn't see the point of speaking of her, has never shown any interest in gossip.
"At any rate," Mrs Archibald says, "It was in better taste not to go to the ball."
"Yes, it would have been horribly…conspicuous," decides Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt.
"So?" Dan says, surprising himself utterly by joining in the conversation. "Why shouldn't she be conspicuous? She's going to be anyway, whether she likes it or not, with everyone eyeing her every move all the time. She made a bad marriage, yes, but I don't why she must bear the brunt of the blame as though it isn't her husband's fault at all for being cruel to her."
Silence reigns after Dan's little pronouncement and it sinks through him like a stone in water that this is the absolute last place where he should say a thing like that – to these people, Madame Grimaldi is indeed at fault. She chose her bad luck; had she done what she was supposed to do, she would be sitting where Penelope is sitting, would very proudly be Mrs Nate Archibald.
Nate sits across from him and Dan meets his eyes warily, hoping the unspoken apology is clear.
"I'd forgotten," William Vanderbilt says. "It's my mistake. I'd forgotten your association with the Rhodes family, Mr Humphrey; of course you must back the Countess for their sake."
"Not just for their sake," Dan murmurs, daring further. "It's what I feel. She has had an unhappy life. That doesn't make her an outcast. She made mistakes, yes, but I don’t see why she ought to be punished for them."
"I agree," Nate says, with a touch of finality. The cheer is very much gone from him, and he sighs a little. "I'm the only one truly allowed to take offense, and I don't; I'm perfectly happy with how my life has gone since. If Blair is not, then I feel only pity for her."
There's a little chorus of how good, how sweet, how kind Nate is but he brushes it all aside with a shrug. Dan hopes Nate is not privately bothered by the line Dan has taken but, more than that, he wishes the conversation hadn't been cut so short. Dan feels his point was not made. He is not merely repeating the family line; he feels strongly, suddenly, that the hypocrisy of demonizing a woman for cruelties inflicted by her husband is not to be endured or supported. She should be free to do as she wishes – as free as any man is. Dan decides this spontaneously but firmly and plans to address it again at his earliest opportunity to do so.
Nate sees Dan to the door at the end of the evening.
"I hope you don't think me too awful," Dan says, almost anxiously. "I just couldn't let it lie like that."
"You wouldn't be yourself if you had," Nate says. "I'm not sore about Blair. Honestly. I only wish she hadn't ended up in such a tangle."
"Yes," Dan says with a nod. "I imagine she wishes the same thing."
Unfortunately Countess Grimaldi's tangle shows no sign of smoothing. The Rhodes had sent out invitations for a formal dinner, under the guise of re-introducing the Countess to society. Representatives from every respectable family were invited (even from the Vanderbilt-Archibalds, in this case the much safer cousin Tripp and his wife). Dan's young sister Jenny was beside herself with excitement, as she'd been a great fan of the Countess in her debutante days and had been dreaming of a debut as fine ever since seeing Blair's own.
Yet every single person, without fail, refused the invitation.
It was an unexpected slight but the Rhodes weathered it in their unashamed way; the person most surprisingly affronted was Dan's mother, an accountably sweet woman who hated to see anyone suffer under society's judgments, a feeling she had passed down to her son. Dan was rather glad she took up the cause and happily gave her his support.
She thought on it a long while and decided finally, "We shall go and see Cyrus Rose."
Cyrus Rose is a diminutive man of impossibly good spirits and impossibly good standing, the latter at least in part because of the former. While Mrs Rose had still lived they entertained often but since her passing her husband has become somewhat more reticent, especially considering his only child (a son) is particularly reluctant to join social affairs. Cyrus Rose's growing reclusiveness, kind manner, and old age only made his favor carry more weight when bestowed, a fact Mrs Humphrey was very aware of.
Cyrus Rose listens to the whole tale with a bowed head and creased brow, nodding at this or that point, until Mrs Humphrey finishes, "And I cannot help but feel it is at least in part due to William Vanderbilt, who is of course a very honorable man but still somewhat upset at the broken engagement between the Countess and his grandson all those years ago."
"You don't have to tell me William knows how to hold a grudge," Cyrus says, not without some amusement. "What bothers me is the principle of the thing. As long as a member of a well-known family is backed by that family it ought to be considered final."
"It seems so to me," Mrs Humphrey agrees, looking to Dan for his concurrence, which he provides with a nod.
"A relation of my late wife is coming soon to visit," Cyrus Rose says thoughtfully, "A duke of somewhere or other, very nice fellow. I'm having a dinner for him with a handful of select guests and I would be honored to extend an invitation to the Countess Grimaldi." He smiles slightly. "I knew her mother when she lived, you know. A wonderful woman, very sharp."
"Her daughter's the same," Dan says before he can help it.
Pale eyes focus on Dan and then crinkle with a true smile. "Then I shall be all the gladder to have her to dine," Mr Rose says brightly.
Dan's mother returns the smile with most earnest thanks echoed by Dan himself, though he wonders a little just how he has become so invested in the fate of this girl who never liked him. It's the principle of the thing, he tells himself. He'd be concerned for anyone in her situation and anyway she's nearly family, so that only makes it more natural he try to lend a hand.
It is generally agreed in New York that the Countess Grimaldi has "lost her looks."
She'd been considered a great beauty in her youth, second only to Serena. She wasn't the kind of girl who set fashions but the kind that followed them to the letter, carrying them off with such style that it was remarkable in its own way. She was a master of every talent little girls are expected to learn, none of Serena's picked up and abandoned habits in her history – no, Blair Waldorf had seen every single thing through to the end with such grace that she was awarded that compliment of all compliments given to young ladies, accomplished.
Her parents had seen her married before they passed, each in their own tragic manner: her father had seen to end his own life for reasons still unknown and unspoken and her mother had fallen prey to illness soon after, perhaps out of shame or heartbreak. It left her quite alone in the world, with the distant Rhodes her only living relations, isolated with a husband whose love quickly became something else entirely.
Dan thinks of this as he watches Blair Grimaldi enter the Rose drawing-room on the evening of the dinner for the duke. She stops just inside the door to take in the room with those large dark eyes fringed with even darker lashes, her mouth tinged a soft, probably unnatural pink and her white skin a little tight to her delicate bones. Yes, Dan thinks, the girl she was is indisputably gone. The youthful flushed cheeks, the superior mean twist to her pretty mouth – all gone. She is thinner now, paler, more worn, noticeably tired. Her former style and flair has simplified and softened. But there is a certainty to her that had been lacking before; she'd always had a fierce kind of hunger that showed in her every expression and gesture, a deep yearning for something that seemed to always exist just beyond her. Even Dan, caught up as he'd been in Serena's thrall, had noticed Blair Waldorf's desperate desire, mainly because it had often manifested in trying to one-up Serena the way girls sometimes did. Nothing would ever be enough for her, and so she'd gone for the romantic adventure across the sea.
That's all gone now. Despite the hint of hesitancy in her right at the moment, she seems to fill her skin as never before. Whatever she'd gone through must have brought this to her, a sorrow and a surety, made her into a woman who has learned exactly who she is.
It worries him to think what must have gone into the making of her eyes.
Cyrus Rose dominates her conversation during dinner, bringing several rare smiles to the Countess' lips. Afterwards, the Duke takes her over for nearly twenty minutes of chatter that Dan watches disinterestedly from the other side of the room until, quite unexpectedly, the Countess rises and crosses right to him, settling demurely at Dan's side.
Blair Waldorf had been a follower of rules and etiquette to the utmost but Blair Grimaldi flaunts them with unpredictable brazenness. It is required, in this sort of situation, for a lady to remain seated while a series of gentlemen circle her one by one. A lady certainly must not leave the company of one man to seek the company of another. But she had and here she is, painted fan spread to cover her solemn mouth as she sets her eyes upon him.
"I think perhaps I was a little callous to you the other day," she says.
"Old habits," Dan remarks.
She smiles, so slightly Dan wonders if its his imagination. "Yes, perhaps. I want you to talk to me about Serena. Are you very much in love with her?"
A romantic flush touched the tops of his cheekbones. "As much as a man can be."
Her head tilts slightly, a real curiosity in her gaze. "Do you think there's a limit?"
He answers honestly, "If there is, I haven't found it."
"It's really and truly a romance then?" she says. "Serena loves you just as truly?"
"If she doesn't then I am the victim of a rather mean trick," Dan says.
The Countess smiles but presses, "It wasn't the least bit arranged?"
Dan is a little taken aback by the query. "Have you forgotten," he asks, meaning it to be another joke, "that in our country we don't allow our marriages to be arranged for us?" Not to mention that no one would arrange the marriage of their only daughter to a songwriter's son.
She looks down and blinks and he sees her lashes are wet. "Yes," a murmur, "I'd forgotten. I don't always remember that everything here is good that was – that was bad where I've come from."
Impulsively, Dan says, "You know you are among friends here."
She looks back at him without moving her downturned face an inch. "You were never my friend, Mr Humphrey."
"No," he says, a soft agreement, "But I'm almost your cousin now, and that's a good deal better, isn't it?"
She doesn't answer, attention drawn to a rustling at the doorway. "Serena has arrived; you'll want to see to her."
Dan pulls his gaze away to look in the same direction as the Countess, finding Serena tall and lovely with blossoms in her always-tangled hair like some kind of nymph. Her mother and brother trail her, and men immediately surround her, but she dwarfs them all with that glow of hers, like a lantern in the dark. Dan has spilled so much ink to the thought of Serena that he marvels any has been left behind to spill more.
"As you can see," he says, "I have so many rivals."
"Then stay with me a moment longer," she says, tapping his knee gently with her folded fan.
"Yes," he says, still feeling the touch after it has ended. "Let me stay."
But at that moment Cyrus Rose finds them again, eager to engage the Countess in conversation once more. Dan rises, surrendering her company, and she holds out a hand to bid him good-bye.
"Tomorrow, then, after five," she says, very offhand, "I shall expect you."
"Tomorrow," he repeats, confusion missing from his tone though present in his mind. Tomorrow? They'd made no plans to meet; she hadn't even hinted. He is reminded of her first entreaty to visit with her, at the home of Mrs Rhodes; he'd assumed it was misplaced politeness and hadn't taken it seriously. Yet there it was again, an order more than an invitation, and that makes him smile. She had always been queenly in her manner in that way. The girl she was comes back to him more and more each time he sees her, though he'd been certain that he'd forgotten her so entirely.
Part Three
Dan, Blair, Serena. Appearances by everyone.
4997 words. PG.
A re-working of Wharton's The Age of Innocence.
Summary: Dan wonders just how he has become so invested in the fate of this girl who never even liked him.
Part One
Note: As with last time, some stuff is obvs stolen from the original novel, mainly some dialogue and lines here or there.
Dan arrives at the ball late, duty driving his steps more than desire and the entire affair made more tedious by that fact. He enjoys balls almost less than the opera and the company of the Basses least of all; the fact that he must also put his life up on the public stage hardly helps his mood. He can nearly hear the whispering already, everyone wondering how the Rhodes could have allowed Serena to choose him of all people.
But this is a good thing in its own way, he reminds himself. If the gossip centers around Serena and himself instead – and their perfectly innocent courtship – then Madame Grimaldi is relieved of it another day.
The Basses' home, where the ball is held year after year on opera night, is one of the few in New York to possess a ball-room. The Basses' home is one of the few in New York to possess any number of similarly gorgeous, similarly useless things: a ball-room used once a year, china and silver touched only at Christmas, costly and sought-after paintings shoved to shadowy third-floor landings to make room for yet more costly ones. Their money is nearly as new as Dan's and they make up for it with flash and pomp.
Mrs. Bass, formerly Miss Charlotte Rhodes, had come up a penniless beauty from Florida and was introduced to society by her cousin, Dan's very own fiancée. She'd shown quite a lot of promise until she surprised everyone by marrying Chuck Bass, the snide and slick son of a much more impressive businessman. Chuck Bass had been known in his youth for his dalliances, often explained away by his frustrated and impatient father as the mistakes of the young, habits Chuck was sure to grow out of. Chuck had married under duress from his father to the prettiest girl who would have him, with everyone's hope being that it would jolt him into being a more settled young man. It did, for a year or so; he followed his father into business, behaved for a little while, and then, upon his father's passing, returned rapidly to a past he'd supposedly left behind. Now most nights he could be found on his way to houses of ill-repute, or at the very least one house in particular, that of his mistress.
Yet here they all are gathered in his ball-room, because it is so very splendid and fine.
Bass is the controlling sort and his touch shows more in the house than his wife's. Dan notices Bass' favored deep purples echoing throughout the carpeting and upholstery as he passes through the main hall. Dan is tempted to visit the library, a room even he must admit is stunningly styled and stocked, and probably entered only on that rare once-a-year occasion that Dan steps into it. However, he knows Serena is awaiting him, so he passes by its heavy, glossy wooden door and into the gallery that leads its pretty way down to the ball-room. Dan rolls his eyes minutely as he takes in the art decorating his walk; another clear mark of Chuck Bass in the audacious and inappropriate nudes hanging right there in plain sight.
Hands clasped behind his back, Dan nods in mild greeting to Mr and Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt as he tries not to hurry too quickly on. He'd like to have the night over with as soon as he can manage it and return to the sanctity of his study, his books, his quiet and complete solitude.
Finally his gaze alights on Serena standing a few feet from the ball-room entrance with her mother at her side, flowers clutched in one arm and the other held aloft to show the ring on her finger to a crowd of eager girls. She sees Dan, offering him an embarrassed smile. He returns it softly, noticing as he does that the Countess is conspicuously absent. One by one the congratulatory girls in their fluffy tulle notice his arrival, offering him pleasantries they'd never bothered to offer before and spinning off to join the dancing, leaving him to take Serena's hand.
"I've done as you asked," she says, hand tucked now into the bend of his arm. "They were all terribly jealous."
"Of all the fine gifts you'll receive and dresses you'll get to wear, no doubt," he says.
Serena smiles. "Of my very handsome young man," she corrects as they take their place amongst the other dancers.
"If anyone is jealous," Dan tells her, "it is everyone in this room of me, for I've got the prettiest girl in New York in my arms."
Indeed, there is real disappoint on the face of nearly all the single (and even some of the married) men in the room when their eyes catch Serena and the charming swish of her skirts, the pretty line of her arm, the curls falling against her tender throat. Her smile is the brightest in the room, all sunshine and all for Dan.
After the dance is finished, they continue on to the conservatory, seeking a private moment amongst the plants.
"I wish it hadn't had to be done at a ball," Dan admits, leading her towards a bench nestled in pink flowers.
"I know," Serena says with a touch of her own reluctance, though she is far from possessing Dan's distaste for the frippery of these events. "But it was the right thing to do and now that it's done we can turn all our thoughts to the future."
"Yes." He smiles a little. "You are right."
"I know how very much you value your privacy," she says, gloved hand wrapping around his. "But even here we are alone together, aren't we? In fact –" She shoots a quick look around and must find their privacy satisfactory, for she leans in and presses a furtive kiss to his mouth. Dan laughs in surprise, cheeks reddening like a schoolboy. She is always surprising him; he think it's what he loves best of her.
Still, it leaves him strangely shy, perhaps because it's her, perhaps because the only kisses they've shared prior have been to hands or cheeks, or otherwise in complete secrecy, stolen and hidden. Anyone could have seen her just now, the daring girl.
She lays an affectionate hand to his flushed cheek, glove cool against his skin. "Did you speak to my cousin?" she asks, a gentle nudge towards more practical matters.
"Oh," he says. He'd felt too odd about doing so after their conversation – her flat unfamiliar tone, the resignation in her eyes. "No, I – I hadn't the chance after all."
Serena frowns slightly; more perplexed than disappointed, he thinks. "Ah. You must, then, for I didn't either. I shouldn't like her to think –"
"Of course not." He gives a little nod. "But aren't you the person to do it, really?"
"Yes," Serena agrees, "If it had been done at the right time. Now I think you ought to explain that I'd asked you to do it at the Opera before we told everyone here, lest she thinks she's been forgotten. Blair has always been very sensitive, you know, especially in matters such as these."
"Of course, of course," he says. "You are right, my dear. But I haven't seen her yet – has she come tonight?"
"No, at the last minute she decided not to."
"At the last minute?"
"Yes. It was rather a surprise, as she's always been so fond of balls and of dancing, but she felt she didn't look smart enough. Which is silly, she looked lovely, but she was not to be convinced."
Dan breathes a little sigh of relief. He sees that Blair Grimaldi is as sharp as she ever was and, in choosing not to attend, she did his announcement one better: she took herself off that public stage Dan loathes so very much, saving herself from further talk without Dan having to do a thing for her.
She had always been a rather capable girl, hadn't she.
The next day is taken up with engagement visits, from Dan's home to Serena's and then on to the imposing house of Mrs Rhodes and rather amusing lady within. The snide and supercilious manner for which she was long known has faded over the course of old age and numerous illnesses, her sharpness settling into cutting humor. She was often too weak to leave her home to mingle with society and so demanded society come to her, which, despite the lackluster meals often served at her table, was a command they were simply too intimidated not to obey.
The Countess, Dan learned, was staying with Mrs Rhodes but they were all very glad to arrive and find her luckily out.
"Your father must write one of his delightful little ditties for the occasion, Mr Humphrey," Mrs Rhodes says, eyes twinkling. "If he could balance his no doubt strenuous responsibilities to the stage and spare a moment for it."
Serena giggles. "Granny, you're horrid," she says. "And you haven't even looked at my ring yet."
"Ah, yes, of course, darling." She snaps her fingers for the maid, who scurries forward to add a generous amount of gin to Mrs Rhodes' teacup – which causes Serena's mother to give an ill-concealed roll of the eyes. "Why, what a lovely ring," she exclaims, taking Serena's hand between her own frail ones. "Who would have suspected a songwriter's son of having such fine taste in jewels."
Dan laughs a little. "Oh, I just picked whatever shined the brightest," he says.
"Though nothing's so bright as my dear Serena, hm?" she says, giving Serena's hand one last pat before releasing it. "Now when's the wedding to be?"
"As soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me up, Mrs Rhodes," Dan says, shooting a smile Serena's way.
"I think a long engagement is best," interrupts Mrs van der Woodsen, folding her hands in her lap.
"Oh, Lily," Mrs Rhodes says, "When did you ever think a long engagement was best?"
Mrs van der Woodsen colors slightly with irritation. The topic of Lily van der Woodsen's various marriages is a rare one, only jested at by her mother in public and her daughter in private. "Well, Mother, that's my point. They must have time to get to know each other."
"Oh, pish," Mrs Rhodes says. "They know each other well enough already. Everyone in New York already knows everyone! Don't wait, my dear; time is fleeting, especially for an old girl such as myself, and I want to give the wedding breakfast."
Though this is, of course, an expected offer, the round of expected gratitude is so exuberant it almost drowns out the sound of the door, and with it Madame Grimaldi's soft steps, followed soon after by louder, brasher ones.
"Bass!" exclaims Mrs Rhodes, interest and mild humorous distaste in her tone. "What on earth has brought you to my doorstep?"
Serena moves to greet the Countess as Chuck Bass steps forward for a brisk handshake. "I met the Countess in Madison Square and she was good enough to let me walk home with her."
He is soon dragged into conversation with the old woman, who had a way of sinking her teeth into a talk in such a way as to make it difficult for her partner to exit the conversation. In doing so she quite forgets her relatives, who begin the drift towards the door, Dan quiet again while Serena and her mother chat to the Countess. Then the van der Woodsen women are being helped into their cloaks and Dan finds himself facing Madame Grimaldi's small, almost disingenuous smile.
He remembers that he is yet to have his conversation with her. "You know about Serena and I?" he says, embarrassed. "I was meant to tell you at the Opera – Serena quite scolded me for failing in my duty – but I just found I couldn't, in that crowd."
Her smile turns a touch more honest, but is undercut by the faintly sardonic lift of her brow. The gesture reminds him suddenly of her younger self, that dismissive Blair Waldorf of days past. "I understand," she says. "One doesn't tell such things first in a crowd."
"Yes," he agrees with a slight inclination of his head. Then he falls silent, awkwardly aware that he has never had anything to say to her.
"Are you waiting for congratulations, Mr Humphrey?" she asks – and if he didn't know better, he'd almost think there was something playful in her tone.
"Oh, I…hadn't thought of it," he says. "But yes, of course – come, Countess, aren't you glad to see your dear friend settled?"
Her eyes seem darker in the dimness of the hall, and her face all the paler; he realizes she wears no rouge or paint on her lips as she had at the opera and it leaves a distinctly gray cast to her countenance. Despite it, he couldn't say she didn't look well – no, he corrects himself, always a particular man when it comes to words, not well – but there is something still compelling there, in those eyes so dark in her pale face.
"Glad, yes…" she trails off. "Anyway, she seems to like you a great deal, so what else am I to say in the matter?"
Dan gives a disbelieving little laugh. "I do believe you were told to be kind to me," he says.
"Was I?" Her other eyebrow lifts to mirror the first. "As you might already be able to tell, I'm rather awful at doing what I'm told."
"Then I might offer congratulations to you," Dan says. "You've managed something no one else of your set ever has."
For the first time in his memory, she looks at him as though he's interesting. But Serena and her mother are already half out the door, and Dan is drawn along with them.
"Good-bye," Madame Grimaldi offers, giving them a smile before her eyes find Dan again. "Do come and see me sometime."
It's only a few days after that Nate Archibald returns from his prolonged European excursion with his new wife beside him. He is welcomed home, accordingly, by a small dinner of family and friends ready to hear what the young couple had seen and with whom they'd visited. Dan attends alone, as Serena is caught up tending to his grandmother through some minor sickness or other. He'd like to bring his family along just for the support, but the Vanderbilts have yet to warm to the entire Humphrey clan, merely granting Dan special permission due to Nate's friendship with him.
Nate is very happy and very brown from the sun, full of tales of hiking and swimming.
"It sounds a perfect horror," Dan jokes. "Did you take in even a little bit of culture? One painting – a postcard of a painting?"
"Nope, not a whit, not a one," Nate says cheerfully.
Dan wonders if anyone has told him of the Countess' return. Though he supposes it doesn't matter very much, or it shouldn't, because Nate and Penelope are doing so well, the happiest newlyweds Dan has yet encountered.
"I hear congratulations are in order for you," Nate says. "Finally got Serena to agree, did you?"
"Got her mother to agree, more like," Dan says dryly.
"Ah, you'll grow on her," Nate says confidently. "Or you won't, but either way you have achieved your goal."
Dan laughs, clapping Nate on the back as they make their way into the dining room.
"I'm only sorry we missed the ball," Penelope says once dinner is underway. "There were so many wonderful diversions in Europe, but I do look forward to it every year." A beat passes and her real reason for bringing it up emerges. "I heard Blair Grimaldi returned in our absence; was she at the ball?"
To his credit, there was barely a perceptible change to Nate's expression at the sound of Blair's name. (Dan imagines he is not the only one who noticed Penelope purposefully leaving off Blair's title.)
"No, no, thank goodness," says Mrs Archibald, Nate's mother. "She had that decency."
"Perhaps the Basses don't approve of her," suggests Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt.
"Mrs Bass may not," William Vanderbilt allows. "But Bass certainly does, to absolutely no one's surprise; she was seen walking up Fifth Avenue with him in broad daylight."
There was a murmur of shock through the table.
"I don't see why we ought to speak of Blair tonight," Nate says (and Penelope visibly bristles at his familiar use of her name). There's no venom in his voice at all, which is like Nate; he simply doesn't see the point of speaking of her, has never shown any interest in gossip.
"At any rate," Mrs Archibald says, "It was in better taste not to go to the ball."
"Yes, it would have been horribly…conspicuous," decides Mrs Tripp Vanderbilt.
"So?" Dan says, surprising himself utterly by joining in the conversation. "Why shouldn't she be conspicuous? She's going to be anyway, whether she likes it or not, with everyone eyeing her every move all the time. She made a bad marriage, yes, but I don't why she must bear the brunt of the blame as though it isn't her husband's fault at all for being cruel to her."
Silence reigns after Dan's little pronouncement and it sinks through him like a stone in water that this is the absolute last place where he should say a thing like that – to these people, Madame Grimaldi is indeed at fault. She chose her bad luck; had she done what she was supposed to do, she would be sitting where Penelope is sitting, would very proudly be Mrs Nate Archibald.
Nate sits across from him and Dan meets his eyes warily, hoping the unspoken apology is clear.
"I'd forgotten," William Vanderbilt says. "It's my mistake. I'd forgotten your association with the Rhodes family, Mr Humphrey; of course you must back the Countess for their sake."
"Not just for their sake," Dan murmurs, daring further. "It's what I feel. She has had an unhappy life. That doesn't make her an outcast. She made mistakes, yes, but I don’t see why she ought to be punished for them."
"I agree," Nate says, with a touch of finality. The cheer is very much gone from him, and he sighs a little. "I'm the only one truly allowed to take offense, and I don't; I'm perfectly happy with how my life has gone since. If Blair is not, then I feel only pity for her."
There's a little chorus of how good, how sweet, how kind Nate is but he brushes it all aside with a shrug. Dan hopes Nate is not privately bothered by the line Dan has taken but, more than that, he wishes the conversation hadn't been cut so short. Dan feels his point was not made. He is not merely repeating the family line; he feels strongly, suddenly, that the hypocrisy of demonizing a woman for cruelties inflicted by her husband is not to be endured or supported. She should be free to do as she wishes – as free as any man is. Dan decides this spontaneously but firmly and plans to address it again at his earliest opportunity to do so.
Nate sees Dan to the door at the end of the evening.
"I hope you don't think me too awful," Dan says, almost anxiously. "I just couldn't let it lie like that."
"You wouldn't be yourself if you had," Nate says. "I'm not sore about Blair. Honestly. I only wish she hadn't ended up in such a tangle."
"Yes," Dan says with a nod. "I imagine she wishes the same thing."
Unfortunately Countess Grimaldi's tangle shows no sign of smoothing. The Rhodes had sent out invitations for a formal dinner, under the guise of re-introducing the Countess to society. Representatives from every respectable family were invited (even from the Vanderbilt-Archibalds, in this case the much safer cousin Tripp and his wife). Dan's young sister Jenny was beside herself with excitement, as she'd been a great fan of the Countess in her debutante days and had been dreaming of a debut as fine ever since seeing Blair's own.
Yet every single person, without fail, refused the invitation.
It was an unexpected slight but the Rhodes weathered it in their unashamed way; the person most surprisingly affronted was Dan's mother, an accountably sweet woman who hated to see anyone suffer under society's judgments, a feeling she had passed down to her son. Dan was rather glad she took up the cause and happily gave her his support.
She thought on it a long while and decided finally, "We shall go and see Cyrus Rose."
Cyrus Rose is a diminutive man of impossibly good spirits and impossibly good standing, the latter at least in part because of the former. While Mrs Rose had still lived they entertained often but since her passing her husband has become somewhat more reticent, especially considering his only child (a son) is particularly reluctant to join social affairs. Cyrus Rose's growing reclusiveness, kind manner, and old age only made his favor carry more weight when bestowed, a fact Mrs Humphrey was very aware of.
Cyrus Rose listens to the whole tale with a bowed head and creased brow, nodding at this or that point, until Mrs Humphrey finishes, "And I cannot help but feel it is at least in part due to William Vanderbilt, who is of course a very honorable man but still somewhat upset at the broken engagement between the Countess and his grandson all those years ago."
"You don't have to tell me William knows how to hold a grudge," Cyrus says, not without some amusement. "What bothers me is the principle of the thing. As long as a member of a well-known family is backed by that family it ought to be considered final."
"It seems so to me," Mrs Humphrey agrees, looking to Dan for his concurrence, which he provides with a nod.
"A relation of my late wife is coming soon to visit," Cyrus Rose says thoughtfully, "A duke of somewhere or other, very nice fellow. I'm having a dinner for him with a handful of select guests and I would be honored to extend an invitation to the Countess Grimaldi." He smiles slightly. "I knew her mother when she lived, you know. A wonderful woman, very sharp."
"Her daughter's the same," Dan says before he can help it.
Pale eyes focus on Dan and then crinkle with a true smile. "Then I shall be all the gladder to have her to dine," Mr Rose says brightly.
Dan's mother returns the smile with most earnest thanks echoed by Dan himself, though he wonders a little just how he has become so invested in the fate of this girl who never liked him. It's the principle of the thing, he tells himself. He'd be concerned for anyone in her situation and anyway she's nearly family, so that only makes it more natural he try to lend a hand.
It is generally agreed in New York that the Countess Grimaldi has "lost her looks."
She'd been considered a great beauty in her youth, second only to Serena. She wasn't the kind of girl who set fashions but the kind that followed them to the letter, carrying them off with such style that it was remarkable in its own way. She was a master of every talent little girls are expected to learn, none of Serena's picked up and abandoned habits in her history – no, Blair Waldorf had seen every single thing through to the end with such grace that she was awarded that compliment of all compliments given to young ladies, accomplished.
Her parents had seen her married before they passed, each in their own tragic manner: her father had seen to end his own life for reasons still unknown and unspoken and her mother had fallen prey to illness soon after, perhaps out of shame or heartbreak. It left her quite alone in the world, with the distant Rhodes her only living relations, isolated with a husband whose love quickly became something else entirely.
Dan thinks of this as he watches Blair Grimaldi enter the Rose drawing-room on the evening of the dinner for the duke. She stops just inside the door to take in the room with those large dark eyes fringed with even darker lashes, her mouth tinged a soft, probably unnatural pink and her white skin a little tight to her delicate bones. Yes, Dan thinks, the girl she was is indisputably gone. The youthful flushed cheeks, the superior mean twist to her pretty mouth – all gone. She is thinner now, paler, more worn, noticeably tired. Her former style and flair has simplified and softened. But there is a certainty to her that had been lacking before; she'd always had a fierce kind of hunger that showed in her every expression and gesture, a deep yearning for something that seemed to always exist just beyond her. Even Dan, caught up as he'd been in Serena's thrall, had noticed Blair Waldorf's desperate desire, mainly because it had often manifested in trying to one-up Serena the way girls sometimes did. Nothing would ever be enough for her, and so she'd gone for the romantic adventure across the sea.
That's all gone now. Despite the hint of hesitancy in her right at the moment, she seems to fill her skin as never before. Whatever she'd gone through must have brought this to her, a sorrow and a surety, made her into a woman who has learned exactly who she is.
It worries him to think what must have gone into the making of her eyes.
Cyrus Rose dominates her conversation during dinner, bringing several rare smiles to the Countess' lips. Afterwards, the Duke takes her over for nearly twenty minutes of chatter that Dan watches disinterestedly from the other side of the room until, quite unexpectedly, the Countess rises and crosses right to him, settling demurely at Dan's side.
Blair Waldorf had been a follower of rules and etiquette to the utmost but Blair Grimaldi flaunts them with unpredictable brazenness. It is required, in this sort of situation, for a lady to remain seated while a series of gentlemen circle her one by one. A lady certainly must not leave the company of one man to seek the company of another. But she had and here she is, painted fan spread to cover her solemn mouth as she sets her eyes upon him.
"I think perhaps I was a little callous to you the other day," she says.
"Old habits," Dan remarks.
She smiles, so slightly Dan wonders if its his imagination. "Yes, perhaps. I want you to talk to me about Serena. Are you very much in love with her?"
A romantic flush touched the tops of his cheekbones. "As much as a man can be."
Her head tilts slightly, a real curiosity in her gaze. "Do you think there's a limit?"
He answers honestly, "If there is, I haven't found it."
"It's really and truly a romance then?" she says. "Serena loves you just as truly?"
"If she doesn't then I am the victim of a rather mean trick," Dan says.
The Countess smiles but presses, "It wasn't the least bit arranged?"
Dan is a little taken aback by the query. "Have you forgotten," he asks, meaning it to be another joke, "that in our country we don't allow our marriages to be arranged for us?" Not to mention that no one would arrange the marriage of their only daughter to a songwriter's son.
She looks down and blinks and he sees her lashes are wet. "Yes," a murmur, "I'd forgotten. I don't always remember that everything here is good that was – that was bad where I've come from."
Impulsively, Dan says, "You know you are among friends here."
She looks back at him without moving her downturned face an inch. "You were never my friend, Mr Humphrey."
"No," he says, a soft agreement, "But I'm almost your cousin now, and that's a good deal better, isn't it?"
She doesn't answer, attention drawn to a rustling at the doorway. "Serena has arrived; you'll want to see to her."
Dan pulls his gaze away to look in the same direction as the Countess, finding Serena tall and lovely with blossoms in her always-tangled hair like some kind of nymph. Her mother and brother trail her, and men immediately surround her, but she dwarfs them all with that glow of hers, like a lantern in the dark. Dan has spilled so much ink to the thought of Serena that he marvels any has been left behind to spill more.
"As you can see," he says, "I have so many rivals."
"Then stay with me a moment longer," she says, tapping his knee gently with her folded fan.
"Yes," he says, still feeling the touch after it has ended. "Let me stay."
But at that moment Cyrus Rose finds them again, eager to engage the Countess in conversation once more. Dan rises, surrendering her company, and she holds out a hand to bid him good-bye.
"Tomorrow, then, after five," she says, very offhand, "I shall expect you."
"Tomorrow," he repeats, confusion missing from his tone though present in his mind. Tomorrow? They'd made no plans to meet; she hadn't even hinted. He is reminded of her first entreaty to visit with her, at the home of Mrs Rhodes; he'd assumed it was misplaced politeness and hadn't taken it seriously. Yet there it was again, an order more than an invitation, and that makes him smile. She had always been queenly in her manner in that way. The girl she was comes back to him more and more each time he sees her, though he'd been certain that he'd forgotten her so entirely.
Part Three