“There’s never any way to be prepared,” she said.
“No,” said Gloria. “But to leave me with nothing... I had no idea.”
Thelma thought of Duke’s healthy vigor; his many homes, scattered like leaves across Britain and Europe. Duke’s wealth was concrete, tied up in dockyards and steel hulls, bricks and mortar. If anything were to happen to him, Thelma would be well cared for—but then, Gloria had thought the same thing.
“Little Gloria is provided for. At least there’s that,” she said.
Gloria nodded. “My lawyer tells me I can’t be guardian of her property until I turn twenty-one. Her person, yes, but not her property.” She rooted through her purse and pulled out a handkerchief emblazoned with Reggie’s initials. “I can use the interest from the inheritance to maintain her standard of living—but what about mine? What on earth am I to do?”
They motored onto a narrow strip of land, the road barely the width of the car. On one side lay the Atlantic Ocean; on the other, a bay eroded into a marsh.
“Would Reggie’s family support you?” asked Thelma.
Gloria folded the handkerchief. “They’ve been very good to me,” she said. “Gertrude’s husband paid for the funeral.”
The automobile slowed as it entered a seaside town, clapboard colonial houses on tree-lined lots, white sailboats turning on mooring lines in the blue distance. Thelma opened the window and salt air breezed in. Newport would be an idyllic place under different circumstances.
The car crept closer to the sea, where the green spaces between houses grew wider. Down long driveways, Thelma could see the peaked roofs of massive homes. They were elegantly haphazard, palatial and incongruous: beaux arts mansions beside French châteaux, English manor homes next to Italian palazzos.
They turned down a drive flanked by a set of massive wrought-iron gates. Thelma couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer size of the estate beyond: built by Reggie’s parents, The Breakers was needlessly large, a statement rather than a summer home. Six footmen flanked the front entrance, standing to attention as the motorcar came to a stop under a heavy limestone portico.
“Good morning, Mrs. Vanderbilt,” said one as he opened the door. Behind him, the others came noiselessly to life, unbuckling Thelma’s luggage from the luggage rack.
“Thank you. Is Mrs. Vanderbilt home?” asked Gloria.
“She is, ma’am. Shall I lead you in?”
“No need.”
Though Thelma was becoming used to Duke’s old-world wealth, the Vanderbilt estate was an entirely different form of opulence. It was almost offensive in its display of family fortune, though Gloria barely blinked as she led Thelma through the front door. The great hall, with its gilt ceilings and immense marble columns, dwarfed Thelma, her footsteps echoing as they walked. She felt as though she’d stepped into the Renaissance, and had to remind herself that the mansion, with its quaint cottage name and sweeping crimson carpets, had been built only thirty years ago.
Gloria led Thelma into a wood-paneled library with a spectacular stone fireplace. Books sat in glass-fronted alcoves; damask-covered chairs and couches fought for prominence against a bright Persian carpet.
Preoccupied as she was with the room itself, Thelma nearly didn’t see the white-haired woman in a high-backed chair by the fireplace. She didn’t stand as Gloria grasped her hand, but looked at Thelma with a placid expression.
“It’s lovely to meet you, my dear,” she said, “though under such unfortunate circumstances.”
“Mrs. Vanderbilt,” said Thelma. “I’d like to offer my deepest condolences. Reggie was such a dear, dear friend.”
Alice Vanderbilt smiled. She was a diminutive woman with papery skin and a stern face, her scrawny neck rising out of a sea of pearls. Like Gloria, she was dressed in black—though, according to Gloria, black was the only color Mrs. Vanderbilt wore, ever since her husband’s death twenty-six years ago.
“So kind,” she said. “My Reggie—our Reggie,” she conceded, looking at Gloria, “spoke so fondly of you.”
She gestured toward a tea tray on the coffee table. “I hoped you might join me for some refreshments, but I wonder—Gloria, would you be so kind as to go make sure Thelma’s things are put in the green bedroom?”
“Of course,” said Gloria and she turned, her footsteps heavy as she made her way back down the hall.
Mrs. Vanderbilt watched Gloria’s retreating figure. “We truly appreciate you coming,” she said.
“I would have come for the funeral if there had been time,” said Thelma, settling into a chair. “How is Gloria?”
Mrs. Vanderbilt shook her head. “I worry she’s not keeping up her strength. The shock of it all—and now this horrid business with Reggie’s estate. She was such a bright young thing when they met, but now...”
“What’s she going to do when the estate is settled?” asked Thelma. “Will she stay with you?”
Mrs. Vanderbilt smiled. She leaned in, her hands folded in her lap. “It’s not terribly sensible, is it, having older and younger generations under one roof?” she said. “Gloria has to think about her future, and about the sort of environment in which she plans to raise my granddaughter. I’ll not give unsolicited opinions, but perhaps she ought to consider being with those from whom she draws strength.”
Thelma frowned, thinking of herself in London and Consuelo, stationed in Paris with her diplomat husband. “Perhaps she ought to return to Europe. For a time, at least.”
Mrs. Vanderbilt nodded. “A change of scenery might be a fine thing for her.”
The door to the library opened once more, as Gloria returned. “All sorted,” she said.
Not for the first time that afternoon, Thelma noticed the deep blue shadows that had gathered under Gloria’s eyes, like mourning veils.
* * *
They arrived at Sandy Point Farm the next morning, an hour before the auction.
“The lawyers tell me I’m only to take what I owned before the marriage,” said Gloria, as they stepped out of the car, “which doesn’t leave me with much. It all fits inside a single trunk.”
Though there was a flurry of activity at the stables where the auction was to take place later that afternoon, the main house was empty, its doors thrown open in anticipation of bidders to come. Thelma walked arm in arm with Gloria through the echoing rooms. The contents had already been removed, but Thelma could see touches of Gloria’s hopeful handiwork: new curtains, barely faded. Fresh paint in the sitting room.
Thelma left Gloria on a bay window downstairs and walked through the bedrooms alone. She had been to the farm before, shortly after Reggie and Gloria’s wedding: she had sat in the back of the carriage as Reggie drove his Hackney horses to and from parties, and had laughed with the women, flirted with the men. Where were Reggie’s friends now, she wondered—the party guests, the high society horsemen? They had disappeared: fearful, perhaps, that Reggie and Gloria’s misfortunes might be contagious.