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There is an itch in his throat that not even this rich Burgundy can scratch.
In fact, George has been in turmoil ever since dinner was announced at eight.
He’d done just fine on the way, with Bertha’s hand in his during the cab ride over. He’d even been moderately excited to be standing next to her in the Barclay’s lavish drawing room, where they could rub shoulders with the old blood of New York City as veritable peers.
And if not him, then Bertha truly flourishes here.
As a private little game, at times George likes to pretend that this is where she had been all along, that he’d found her a princess and not a farmer’s daughter. It is in the way her deep blue, velvet dress swishes around her hips as she moves, the string of pearls around her slender neck and the diamonds in her tiara twinkling in the light of the chandelier, that just feels so profoundly right.
He could imagine her striding felicitously through the salons of Paris, or commanding the Emperor’s ballrooms in Vienna. Comfortable in her rightful place—on the very top of society.
As she so easily teases a laugh from their hosts, he can nearly believe it; yet Bertha catches his eye and the steely blue of her irises carries something that could only ever be borne of the long, winding road it took to get them here.
Something profoundly pleased, that smiles conspiratorially at him as it says: Look at us now. We, who stood in dust and wet dirt, now dig our heels into their thick Persian carpets.
Then they had gone through to the dining room and George’s plight started in earnest.
He’s usually quite good at talking companionably with these people, to nod and hm in all the right places, just the sort of detached interest Bertha had taught him which works so well on the rich and influential.
And yet, seated here amongst the upper crust of New York, George finds himself at a loss for words.
The first three courses—oysters, green turtle soup and sea bass—are tolerable enough, especially when paired with the wine and the conversation, which at this stage is still flowing amicably.
But one glance at where Bertha is seated, diagonally opposite to him, suddenly renders him mum—and the people on either side of him irrelevant, as noteworthy as rungs on a ladder.
They might as well be nonexistent as he stares at how her lips wrap around the edge of her glass and she takes a demure sip; his eyes slide up just to find Bertha already looking back at him with the hint of knowing smile, pulling up the corner of her mouth.
The flickering candlelight is reflected by the silverware and dances multifold over her features, making it especially hard for George to tear his eyes away. She is a painting in motion, he rather thinks, far beyond anything the likes of Sargent could ever produce.
He hungers for her in this moment, especially; lamenting the knowledge that none of the food set in front of them could ever be enough to satisfy it.
Then comes the canard à la rouennaise; parmentier potatoes, green peas and creamed carrots, after which they are served a palate cleanser in the form of a punch romaine, and George wishes ardently for the Barclay’s cook to follow it up with dessert.
He’s a horrid conversationalist now, barely even responsive as the man next to him delves into a story about his sailing trip up the coast of New England. The lady on his other side is asking how he is enjoying the food. George nods with a practiced smile and says he can scarcely remember having had anything better—of course, he barely remembers anything he’s had, at all.
Because Bertha is laughing at something Mr. Barclay has said, and even as an ugly twinge of jealousy unfurls in his chest, George cannot help but lose himself in the sound and sight of her brilliant smile, and the attractive lines of her neck as she tilts her head back with merriment.
As they’re served another course, he thinks about the expanse of flesh he’d rather put his mouth to, that alabaster plane that stretches from her delicate collarbones up to that space below her earlobe, which never fails to make her sigh and melt into him when he kisses her there—how is he meant to enjoy a lavish dinner when he has tastes that could never be sated by anything on offer, by anyone other than her?
George stabs at his salad with a frown, spearing the lettuce as if it has personally offended him.
The thing he dislikes the most about these dinners is how excruciatingly long they go on. Bertha is more at home in the ways of etiquette and the fashions a modern menu ought to ascribe to than he is, but it seems rather senseless to George to have a ten course meal where three or four would as well suffice.
The lady next to him asks about the state of the economy, a pitiful attempt to be engaging, no doubt, and George humors her with a general account of the goings-on in the railroad industry. The woman’s eyes glaze over once he starts talking about competitive steel prices; George wraps up the conversation absentmindedly, feeling like surely, by now another hour has passed.
They make it to dessert, anyhow.
A footman approaches the table with a Neapolitan cake–Bertha’s favorite. Her eyes light up when a white, red and green-layered slice is placed before her and George cannot help feeling like his suffering has been worth it to bring him this sight: Bertha, for a change utterly blind to the world as she takes her first bite, her eyes falling closed and her shoulders sagging as she loses herself to the taste of it.
Her eyes open again and find his, by chance. George smirks at her as she discreetly licks the sticky icing from her teeth. Bertha casts her eyes skyward once—very nearly rolling her eyes at him, which of course isn’t done amongst their current company. She then proceeds to utterly ignore him, in favor of her treat.
The almond cake is paired with assorted fruits, candied oranges and pears, of which George eats only one before he finds he’d much rather continue on watching his wife, instead.
Fate plays a cruel trick on him then, for the dessert course seems to pass so much more quickly than all that had preceded it, taking with it his opportunity to see Bertha delight in the sweets, which she so adores.
It is not entirely proper, he’s learned, for a lady to indulge in her sweet tooth; or at the very least it is expected she does not overindulge, or in any way attracts undue attention to it. In Bertha’s case, it sometimes seems she is nearly embarrassed by it.
As if showing desire of any kind undermines their position in society, which she has so carefully constructed, and that they ought to remain perfectly aloof to all the pleasures they surround themselves by to be truly accepted.
Old money does not speak, she’d impressed on him, once. This was to be key, if they wanted to enter the highest social order. George, on the other hand, often thinks that there is little point to living lavishly if one were afraid to indulge in and enjoy it. With all the success they’ve enjoyed, is it so wrong to revel in the spoils of their victory?
So they straddle the line, adorning their mansion on 61st Street with gilded ornaments and the most elaborate fittings money can buy, pretending to see none of it all as they go about their lives there.
Dinner ends mercifully quick, after that.
George hangs around the smoking room with the other gentlemen if only for the exercise of it, listening to their conversations but not participating in them, his mind still occupied by a singular entity.
He wonders if any of these men have ever known that cutting frustration of missing someone, of yearning for them, even when they are in the very same room. If they’ve ever hungered like this, starved, craved in ways that the most elaborate dinner in the world could not hope to fulfill.
George knows it well. Knows, too, that there is but one thing that can resolve the feeling. He discards his cigar half-finished and bids the men a good night.
When the footman opens the door to the tea room for him, George is reminded once more of his fantasy—Bertha is in the middle of things, speaking to the gathered ladies like a Queen addressing her subjects.
Game or no, the truth of it has always been that Bertha simply belongs here, wearing her gleaming smile and jewels, that glitter like the night sky in the soft candlelight. He finds himself invited into this world only by extension, by virtue of her.
Never a pair of parvenus, as these people might call them the moment their backs are turned; never an arriviste, an upstart, a nouveau riche. It is only that they are the very first of their line.
Her gloved hand reaches back for him while her head is still turned, as deep in conversation as she is with a lady whose name George cannot presume to remember.
She must have heard him approach, he wonders, as her fingers curl around his arm. So attuned to him that she needn’t even glance over her shoulder to know him, to reach for him and pull him to her side by the crook of his elbow.
It fills him with the strangest sort of contentment, feeling at once lightheaded, giddy and drunk and he is glad for her touch, keeping him upright.
“I don’t mean to pull you away,” George murmurs once Bertha turns her attention towards him.
“Nonsense. I shall bid Mrs. Barclay good night and then we can go.”
Bertha fixes him with a discerning gaze as she speaks, although George suspects she knows very well why he is eager to leave. He only nods and lets her lead the way.
Once they are in a cab, the Barclay house disappearing into the night behind them, she says: “I thought you might’ve enjoyed the company of the men for a little while longer. I know you’ve been looking for new investors, and there were plenty of decent prospects at this table.”
“There was only one person on Earth I wanted to be in the company of at the end of all that, my dear,” George responds, tangling their fingers together with a smile. “So I left to find her.”
Bertha’s eyes soften indeterminably. “Oh? And pray tell, did you find her?” she says, her low voice turning into something delightfully warm and fluid as she feigns ignorance.
“I did.” George lifts her hand and kisses the back of it. “She was quite impossible to miss.” He is determined to remain the perfect gentleman, for now; until they are back between the familiar pink walls of her bedroom and he can peel off her jewels, her dress, and devour her like he’s been longing to, all night.
Bertha smirks like she can tell what he’s thinking about. George wouldn’t be surprised if she did. “Now I know why you looked like a sulking schoolboy all throughout dinner.”
“They oughtn’t to seat me so far away from you.” George leans in to kiss her cheek, following it up with another pressed to that spot below her ear, delighting in how she sags against him. “I couldn’t stand it—I’m afraid everyone at the table must think me terribly dull.”
He tilts her fine chin towards him, so he can, at last, kiss her properly.
His need for her affection mustn’t come to a surprise to her. Their social debt is settled and now she’s only his, again.
Bertha melts into him as their lips move together, pushing her body against his with an urgency that mirrors his. Her hands push and pull at his dinner jacket before one of them finds purchase in his curls, pulling him back in when he takes a needed breath—George is sure he can still taste the sweetness of that cake’s frosting on her tongue, drinking in the tart sweetness of plums and apricots as he licks into her mouth.
“George,” she protests when a wandering hand finds its way under her dark blue skirts, but George can hear the smile in her voice, so he only hums noncommittally as he explores further up her leg.
Desire has run away with him, now. His fingers brush past her knee, to the inside of her thigh, where she’s sensitive— “George,” Bertha reprimands him now, the hand she kept in his hair starting to pull at his curls. “Can’t you wait until we’re home?”
George can only grin at his wife, settling his roving fingers on her knee before he kisses her again.
“I’ve waited all night,” he entreats.
Bertha fixes him with a look that clearly states his petulance won’t make her sway. “Then you can wait a little longer,” she says, sealing her words with a hand on his cheek and a chaste kiss to his lips.
With a sigh, George collapses against the back of the cab, accepting his fate to fast for a little while longer.