fic: the age of dissonance (6/9)
Nov. 12th, 2014 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firstaudrinaT H E A G E O F D I S S O N A N C E (6/9)
dan, blair, serena, others.
5923 words. a re-working of edith wharton's the age of innocence.
summary: He feels that there is a distance between them that cannot be crossed; they can merely shout words across the breadth of it and never get any closer.
note: Because of both Yuletide and the holiday prompts I do in December (which let me tell you are quite the undertaking), there's going to be a little break in the updating of this fic – probably a month or two. I'd like to get the next part up sometime in January but February seems more likely. These chapters do take a lot of work and I don't want to half-ass it or stress myself out over fanfic, so I'm budgeting in some post-holiday decompression time.
Boston is overheated in the dull way of true summer, with even the air breathlessly uncomfortable as it drags through the lungs, and the streets are empty except for the disgruntled few who couldn't afford to leave the city for the season. It is not the sort of place he can easily imagine Blair, but then again it's been so long since he's had call to imagine her anywhere.
Despite all this, there is an energetic quickness to Dan's step that he cannot deny or dispel.
Today is to be another stolen day. He could hardly begrudge himself a single day; he had been intending to return to New York early anyway, so the detour to Boston will hardly be missed in his schedule. No one need know. It is as though the day does not exist at all, a void in the calendar, a skip in time that Dan has neatly slid through. He can almost convince himself of all this ¬– almost.
The lying came with such ease that it startled Dan, and the rationalizations followed quick on its heels. He is ashamed of that, and yet what offends his sensibilities more is that he is not more ashamed. His desire to be here outweighs his morality and, for better or worse, he has come to understand the mindset of all those terrible husbands who sneak away from their ignorant wives.
The Buckley girl had told Dan that Blair was staying at the Parker House, so Dan goes there directly – only to be informed that Blair is out. He stands there a minute at the front desk before declining to leave a note and departing disheartened. He decides to take a walk through the Common. If nothing else, it will give him some time to gather himself before choosing his next move.
However, the decision is taken quite out of his hands as he spots Blair almost immediately upon entering the park.
It seems too perfectly picturesque a coincidence to be true. After all this time, nearly two years of absence and purposeful forgetting, here she is, sitting on a bench and reading a book. He could laugh at how stupid and simple it is.
He only wants to look at her for a moment. He sees her in profile, her face bent towards the book, shadowed by the gray silk sunshade she holds aloft in one gloved hand. Curls of glossy brown hair fall around her face, the rest of it haphazardly pinned at the base of her neck. Her dress is not quite as pristinely pressed as usual. Her expression is blank if a little joyless, and the image of her altogether is one of distinct lethargy. She is not quite the same.
He is caught. He doesn't know how to approach her, but he can't continue to just stand here. So he makes his throat work, makes his lips shape her name for the first time in such a long time, twist it up into a question: "Blair?"
Perhaps it is the use of her given name that startles her, though Dan likes to imagine the sound of his voice specifically has some effect. She doesn't stand but her back gets very straight, like a ruler. "Dan," she says.
"I'm –" He doesn't know what he is. He thinks he should have called her Countess Grimaldi instead. "I'm – I'm here on business. What a shock to stumble upon you, especially when we missed one another at Newport."
Her expression clears a little then, and she moves so he might sit beside her. "Yes, indeed." Once he's seated, she adds, "I'm here on business too. Only for two days, and without dear Dorota, so you'll have to excuse my appearance."
He sees her slightly mussed hair and well-worn dress in a new light, but decides he likes the look of it on her, finding a certain lushness in her disarray. There is also her voice, which had not remained in his memory even a little, not a note of it – a voice to which cruelty is as familiar as wit, with an almost singsong quality that he now recalls can lend itself to shrillness or cloying. He is so overwhelmed by her voice that there is a stagnant, horrible pause before he realizes he must speak. "Without your maid? How unconventional." Then, even more belatedly and much too softly, "I noticed your hair was different."
Her hand rises to touch it self-consciously. "I've come here to do something even more unconventional: refuse money that belongs to me."
His brow furrows. "Someone came here with an offer? And you refused?"
She nods.
"Because of the conditions?"
Blair's lips part but it is a moment before she says, "I refused."
"What were the conditions?"
She waves a hand, her gaze breaking from his for the first time since he said her name. "They weren't onerous; just to sit at the head of his table now and then."
Dan takes off his hat and fiddles with it in his hands before putting it back on. "He wants you back at any price?"
Blair makes a small, amused sound. "At a considerable price. At least it is considerable for me."
"Is he here now?"
She looks at him again and actually does laugh. "My husband? Oh, no; he's at Cowes this time of year. He merely sent someone."
"With a letter?"
"Just a message. I think he's only bothered to write once since I've returned." The curl of her lips becomes smaller and sadder, perhaps wistful. "He used to be a great writer of love letters, you know. Only after we were married I found out he never wrote them himself. Why write yourself when you've got secretaries to do it for you?"
Dan flushes just a little at his ears and the back of his neck. She had fled with a secretary. "And this – this emissary?"
"Might, for all I care, have left already, though he insisted on waiting until the evening on the chance…" She only gives a little shake of the head.
On the chance she changes her mind, Dan thinks. This unspoken statement ringing in both their ears, they fall silent, staring not at each other but straight ahead at the people passing by. He feels that there is a distance between them that cannot be crossed; they can merely shout words across the breadth of it and never get any closer.
Finally, Blair murmurs, "You're not changed."
Just as quietly, Dan replies, "I was, till I saw you again."
In his peripheral vision, he sees the slight contraction of her hand where it rests on her lap. "Am I changed?"
"Yes," he says. "Every time I see you, I find you greatly changed."
"Humphrey," she breathes. There's a warning in it. He had only answered a question she had asked.
"Let's go out on the bay, shall we?" he says suddenly, spontaneously. "It's so terribly hot. It'll be cooler out on the bay; there'll be a breeze. There's a steamboat that goes to Point Arley. We could –" He breaks off as his babbling catches up to him. But then, because he cannot help himself, "Haven't we done all we could?"
The effect these words have on Blair is instantaneous. "You mustn't say things like that to me."
His lips press together to keep himself from doing just that. Eventually he offers, "I'll say anything you like. Or nothing. I won't speak unless you tell me to. All I want is to listen to you."
To her voice which can be gently cruel and cruelly gentle.
Blair doesn't reply immediately, so Dan presses, "Just give me the day. You can get away from that man waiting for you."
She gives him a look equal parts quizzical and calculating. "You needn't be afraid. If I don't come."
He holds her gaze steadily. "Nor you either, if you do. I only want to talk, as we used to sometimes. It's been a hundred years since we met – it may be another hundred before we meet again."
Blair studies him, weighing his truth. "Why didn't you come down to get me the day you and Serena came to Granny's?"
Abashed, he glances away and back again. "I played a little game with myself. I saw you standing there at the pier and said to myself that I'd only come down if you turned before a sailboat crossed the lighthouse. But you didn't turn."
Blair's eyes are large and liquid. "But I didn't turn on purpose."
"Oh?"
"I went down to the beach to avoid you," she says. "To get as far away from you as I could."
Dan swallows. "I have no business in Boston. I only wanted to see you."
Softly, Blair says, "I know."
"We'll miss our boat if we linger here much longer," he says lightly, watches her waver one final time before giving in.
They go back to the hotel first so Blair can leave a note for the emissary while Dan secures a carriage to take them to the wharf. He had offered to take the note in for her, but Blair declined with a shake of the head, disappearing quickly through the doors and into the lobby. He waits for her restlessly, unable to bear even these few wasted minutes. His gaze is focused on the doors, each person who comes and goes, and he's a little startled when a familiar face appears quite unexpectedly. There's no time to dwell on it – Blair returns moments later and they hurry on to their destination – but the name comes to him unbidden: Carter Baizen had exited the hotel. How queer.
They arrive just in time to board the half-empty boat, and they both laugh a little like it's such a lucky thing. They move towards the bow, where Blair leans forward against the railing, into the cool breeze coming off the water. She has wound a veil around her hat but left her face bare, and Dan is unable to resist examining her a little in the bright summer light. He has never seen her in the summer before, instead attaching her always to lonely New York winters just beginning to encroach on sepia-toned autumns. Summer seems a stifling season for Blair with her pale face and sturdy gown, unlike Serena who blossoms like a flower at the first touch of sun.
He doesn't speak for fear of disturbing the delicate balance of her trust in him. He has no wish to betray that trust but knows all the wrong words are waiting at his lips to be spoken. There have been days and nights when the memory of their kiss has burned through him, or just the thought of her made his blood careen through his veins; still other days when he made himself blank and empty, if only to prevent her memory from filling him. But these are not the sorts of things he's supposed to say.
A strong gust of wind blows her veil back, a long ivory ribbon caught in the air. The only thing preventing it from flying away entirely is the end curled around her neck. Blair fusses with it as she tries to right it, only managing to tangle it further; with an immediacy borne from lack of thought, Dan reaches over to straighten it for her, smoothing the fabric and laying it correctly so it frames her face as it did before. She smiles her thanks but something in her eyes is very sad.
When they get off at Point Arley, they stop by the dining-room of an inn for a quiet talk disguised as an early lunch. Dan requests a private room, which opens prettily onto the verandah, the water a faint lullaby in the background. They sit across from one another, that illimitable distance widening between them once again, and begin a conversation that is more stops than starts. He doesn't offer much of himself, instead listening to Blair describe the last year and a half of her life.
She had grown tired of society; that much Serena had already told him. Blair became exhausted of trying and failing to fit into a New York that had become strange instead of welcoming – where the only steps she made were the wrong ones, if only because it was she who had made them. That was why she'd gone to Washington. It was a change of pace, at least.
"I never knew this side of New York," she admits. "Or, rather, I had known – known and not cared, because I had never experienced any of it. It was ignorant of me. It appears I don't have the patience or the strength to withstand it."
"I'm sure that isn't true," Dan says quietly. "It can be difficult, impossibly difficult, to find yourself on the outside looking in. Maybe worse for you. You had been inside before."
"You understand so well," she says with appreciation.
He smiles slightly, somewhat humorlessly. "It's what you used to dislike most about me," he remarks.
She bristles. "I was different then." Choosing her words with apparent care, she continues, "Once you said I didn't like you – and by that you meant all of you, all of our family. But I think it's you who doesn't like them. Because you aren't one of them, not really, not even now."
"No?" Dan says. "I bought all my clothes in London. I live in a well-appointed townhouse. I work for an important law firm, my children will all be Rhodes… It would stand that I have made myself a part of things."
"No," Blair affirms. "You know as well as I that no matter what you do, you're still Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn."
She doesn't say it cruelly, just very gently, but the effect is much the same.
"If we have no ability to escape our pasts, then why don't you go back to your husband?" he says. He isn't angry. It's only frustration. The frustration of being so near her and so far from her at once, the frustration at how she understands and yet does not – it's unbearable.
Blair levels him with a genuinely unreadable look. "I believe it's because of you."
The confession is made as dispassionately as a passing comment on the weather.
"I want to be perfectly honest with you," she goes on, in a much firmer tone, "and with myself. I want to explain. I'm not sure you understand just how much you've helped me, what you've made of me – I don't know how to explain myself, but it seems I never understood before how even the most exquisite pleasures hid such baseness – how there is so much sensitivity and compassion in someone like you –"
"Someone like me," he muses, interrupting her. "What could someone like me have made of someone like you? And what of what you've done to me? For I'm of your making much more than you ever were of mine."
Her cheek had paled before under his spiteful questioning, but now a flush rises to its surface. "Of my making?"
"Oh yes," Dan says. "I'm the man who married one woman because another one told him to."
Displeasure reveals itself in the downturned curve of her mouth. "I thought you promised not to say such things to me today."
"Then I suppose I made a promise I could not keep."
"Like all men, then," Blair says testily. "Like your promises to Serena, your vows to her."
His chair scrapes across wood as he rises, moving to the railing of the verandah, dry and warm beneath his hands. He murmurs, unable to suppress his bitterness, "We must always think of Serena."
Blair still sits, but her hands are on the arms of the chair as though she wants to push off them to standing. "Mustn't we?"
He turns back to face her. "What's the use? You gave me a glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond enduring – that's all."
"Don't say that," Blair reprimands, "When I'm enduring it!"
Her eyes are shining in the slanting afternoon light, and they are anything but dispassionate now. Anger had brightened her countenance, brought life into her face, and now anguish has made her acutely beautiful. Her face has become a book open for his perusal with pages as familiar to him as any he had penned himself. It overwhelms him, douses the fire of his own vexation, and leaves him suddenly stranded.
"You too," he says, a realization he had somehow missed, seeing only his own pain. "All this time, you too?"
Blair blinks tears from her eyes. "I never took you for a stupid man, Humphrey – even when my opinion of you was not so high."
Dan takes his seat again and sees her relax minutely, the tension dissipating from her limbs. One of her slim white hands, ringed as always, rests on that impossible distance between them and he reaches out to cover it with his own. She turns her palm to his, her fingertips just curling round his wrist. He feels much closer to her and simultaneously all the farther.
"You won't go back?"
Blair sighs and takes her hand away. "I won't. Not as long as you hold out." She raises her gaze to his. "I have been where she would be. I know this pain. I choose now not to inflict it."
"And that's all there is to be?" Dan asks. He already knows the answer but cannot help the small, stupid, desperate part of him that wants a different one. "For either of us?"
"Well; it is all, isn't it?" As though to soothe the sting, she touches his hand lightly one more time. "Don't be unhappy."
I cannot promise it, he thinks, though he keeps the words at bay. He knows their time in this little shuttered room is over; the day he asked for has passed. There is nothing more he can do except leave their future in her care, asking only that she keep fast hold of it.
He wants to kiss her but knows it to be impossible. Her decision is clear: she will stay near him as long as he never asks her to come nearer. She will let him be untrue to his wife in his heart as long as he isn't in any other way – because he has won Blair with kindness, and to betray Serena would also be the ultimate betrayal of the man she believes him to be.
Dan does not think himself so kind or good, only selfish.
Yet as they ride the steamboat back to their respective lives and destinies, a kind of tranquility does settle over him. The day had been a failure. The only thing separating now from before are the terms of their detachment; his heartache has found no solace or solution. Nevertheless, he does feel soothed. Blair has found a way to keep them loyal to those they love without their continued lying to themselves or each other, and she has drawn the exact line in the sand that he must honor. There is some comfort in that.
He can be near Blair without having her. Being near her can be enough.
* * *
August gives way to autumn, which in turn ices over for winter. Serena's family goes to St. Augustine but for the first time she remains behind, bundled up in furs at Dan's side. Dan spends his time at work, taking on the bulk of the responsibilities in Mr. van der Woodsen's absence, or otherwise in his study, eternally catching up on his reading. Even now, he doesn't feel entirely at home in the house purchased and decorated for them by Serena's parents. With the exception of the study, of course – Serena had been charmingly adamant that it remain entirely his. For that he was glad, because the rest of the townhouse bore no mark of him at all.
It has been four months since he last saw Blair. He wrote her once asking when he might see her again, and she replied simply, "Not yet."
Dan has begun to build a little fortress of thoughts and desires: the books he reads, the dreams he cultivates privately, the judgments he makes and prejudices he argues – he brings them all to Blair in his thoughts, composing countless letters he never writes or sends. He knows he has begun to pull too far from the reality of his life, if it could still be called that. Serena looks at him with concern. He rather wishes she had gone on to St. Augustine as usual, if not to save him from her tenderness than to give herself a respite from having to be tender.
Still, she has a few venues in New York that can offer her better amusement than he can. It has become the thing to do to go to Mrs. Ivy Dickens' on Sunday evenings, a trend the older society women bemoan as much they do new fads in fashion. Even Jenny has gone along once or twice with Serena, despite her protestations of the scandal when it was only Blair who went. But in the recent few months, Mrs. Dickens' loud clothes and Sunday soirées are pale gossip when compared to the apparent plight of the Basses – a topic anyone who is anyone seems to relish.
No one really likes Bass, so when trouble descended upon him people were inclined to feel schadenfreude before they felt sympathy. But this had gone beyond French mistresses being sent on expensive vacations: his bad investments appeared to be getting ever worse, and the idea of him bringing financial dishonor on his wife's family was nearly too shocking to be enjoyed.
"I do feel rather bad for poor Charlotte," Penelope says to the assembled dinner party, not sounding particularly sorry. "But what could one really expect, marrying a man like that?"
Dan is even less inclined than the general populace to feel any sympathy in regards to Chuck Bass, but he does find it curious (to say the least) how everyone was willing to turn a blind eye to Bass' exploits when his wealth and his wife's popularity reigned supreme; now that he lacks the appropriate financial backing, the story has changed. But isn't that always the case in this city?
"And do you know what else –"
Penelope continues to hand-deliver the good gossip once everyone has rumbled agreement to her statements about "poor Charlotte," leaning in a little to truly revel in the attention of the table.
"I've heard Carter Baizen is back in New York! It's been absolute eons since he's stepped foot in the States – he was seen escorting his sister Caroline, which must mean the Baizens are seeing fit to restore his inheritance –"
Dan seeks out Serena's reaction immediately, but finds her inattentive, absorbed in conversation with Jenny – though a moment later her gaze darts to Dan's, a vague question in the look. In truth, Dan had already known of Carter's return to the city.
He had seen Carter first over a week ago, exiting the townhouse just before Dan returned there from work. He probably would not have caught Carter at all had he not left a little early that day. He could only assume Carter was there to meet with Serena, and had those suspicions confirmed when she didn't mention the visit once. He would have liked to see her express surprise at Penelope's announcement, just to further compound the secret of it – but that's an unkind wish.
Dan had felt a torrent of uneasy and uncategorized emotions upon seeing another man leaving his home. He knew Serena had something of a past with Carter and, without knowing the specifics, it had been enough to bring a visible change on her when they met Carter on their honeymoon. It could be possible that Dan's emotional distance from her had driven her into the arms of an old lover – it was more than possible, in Dan's mind. And he did not know how to feel about such a possibility.
It would be hypocritical for Dan to feel jealousy, but competing emotions can often be experienced at once with no care for the logic of it. So he did feel jealous, at least a little; she is his wife, after all. There was also a sense of relief that she might find comfort with another, if only because it would be an alleviation of his own guilt. Maybe she had loved Carter all the while, but been unable or unwilling to wed him.
Or it could be none of those things – perhaps Carter had seen Dan in Boston and come to reveal the fact to Dan's wife.
After Penelope's announcement at dinner, Carter's appearance in New York no longer has the air of secrecy about it, so Dan feels able to approach him. He arranges the meeting for the club, where they can speak with a veil of insouciance. Carter sees through this immediately, but deigns to humor Dan anyway.
"Are you here to play knight in shining armor?" he asks between a puff of his cigarette and swallow of his whiskey. "You needn't bother; as I'm sure she told you, it was only family business."
Dan bites his tongue, but his expression must give him away, for Carter raises a slow eyebrow and adds, "Unless she hasn't told you, that is. Well. I suppose you aren't really a part of things – are you?"
Dan frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Amused, Carter gives a careless shrug. "Not a thing, Humphrey. Here, I'll soothe your fears: I went to Serena to speak of her cousin, who I'd seen lately on business."
With keen clarity, Dan recalls Carter leaving the Parker House in Boston. "You were Count Grimaldi's messenger?"
Carter's amusement grows into a small smile. "Was I right in thinking I saw you in Boston, then, Humphrey?"
Dan ignores this. "So you delivered your message; what did you have to say of it to Serena?"
Carter grounds out his cigarette. "I've long been an agent of both sides, so to speak. I do a little work now and then for the Count, have done for years – in between disinheritances, one must take up some position, you understand – and so I was able to offer aid once to the Countess on Serena's behalf. Serena's a good girl and she worried, you know, considering what she suspected the Count to be like – so she asked me to help and I did."
Dan is unable to keep from gaping a little. He had had no inkling that Carter Baizen, of all people, had been in any way involved in the entire situation, let alone that he had been the secretary who helped Blair flee in the first place.
"And I knew Madame Grimaldi's family would not take kindly to her refusal of the Count's offer, so I came by to… Well, to keep Serena abreast of the situation, to see to it Blair had some support for her decision. But of course Serena didn't require my prodding." He glances at Dan. "Whatever I was once, I'm only an old friend now – very old, practically ancient – so you needn't worry I'm after your wife." He seems to consider this. "Well, not after her too much."
It occurs to Dan that this is all information that has been purposefully kept from him. By the family, no doubt – Dan's open disagreement on all topics related to Blair and her husband unsurprisingly excluded him from further discussions, but he hadn't anticipated Serena keeping such things from him.
The only thing Dan can think to say is, "Are you still in the Count's employ?"
"Ah, no," Carter says. "My father has decided he wants a son again, so I can be a shiftless gentleman once more."
"If only we were all so lucky to have occupations so suited to our talents," Dan says. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Good evening."
Dan knew Blair was further from her family's good graces than before. Even Mrs. Rhodes had failed to defend her in wake of her final refusal to return to her husband and had cut her allowance drastically. Nate's family, apparently holding an eternal grudge, had taken some pleasure in it:
"Who knows what she's living on now," scoffed Nate's mother, "Shame she didn't get that divorce; at least then she might have remarried richly."
Dan is agitated in the wake of his conversation with Carter, beginning several letters to Blair that he ultimately discards. It isn't just concern for her and how she's living that motivates him; his ugly selfishness is rearing its head once again. Perhaps another afternoon with her will once again clear his mind and settle his conscience.
Over a quiet, private dinner with Serena, he broaches the topic. "I thought," he begins, voice startling in the silence. He clears his throat and starts over, much softer. "I have been giving so much time to my work lately, as you know… It leaves me such little time to get any real writing done. I thought I might take something of a short holiday… Just a day or so." He clears his throat again. "Possibly in Washington."
Serena looks at him over the flicker of candle-flames. "The change will do you good," she says finally. "But you must be sure to go and see Blair." Her attention falls back to her plate. "You know I always want you to have time to write."
Quiet settles over them like the dusting of snow on the ground outside. Once they had shared confessions readily, revealing hidden affection and love and worry the way lovers were supposed to. Some time after their wedding this had stopped and now Dan isn't sure how to relearn the language of it. He remembers her brutal honesty in the orange grove, her determination to be open with him; he wonders why now she keeps secrets about old friends, why she doesn't just ask him if she is curious about his behavior of late.
He wonders why he makes no confessions himself, and says nothing.
* * *
Chuck Bass was not an honorable man but he did always seem to manage to slink away from any blame laid at his feet for anything, so it is quite a surprise when his failure promises to be one of the most discreditable in the history of Wall Street. Dan's office is abuzz with news of it on Monday morning.
"It'll hit just about everyone we know," Serena's father guarantees darkly. "He had a hand in everyone's business, and kept assuring the lot that everything was up to snuff, going along as planned. Little did they know!"
The bad news only continues to roll in: around mid-afternoon, Mr. van der Woodsen comes to Dan's desk to collect him, waving about a telegram he'd just received from his wife. With an economy of phrasing, it read, Mother had slight stroke last night. Please come at once.
They leave work immediately, traveling uptown to find Mrs. Rhodes' house busy with doctors and relatives. Serena is pale and worried but, even with whatever is going on between them, her expression becomes instantly relieved as soon as she sees Dan. She puts her arms around him, neglecting a hello to tell him in a rushed, quiet voice what had gone on in this house the night before.
"Apparently Lola – Charlotte – came to see her late last night," Serena murmurs, tugging Dan further into the room. "The butler said they spoke maybe an hour before Lola left, and Granny went to bed as usual, but in the middle of the night the bell rang and they found her in her room…" Serena is wan but hopeful. "She's already regaining control of her facial muscles, the doctor said. And she was able to tell Mother a bit –"
It seems Charlotte Bass had discovered the extent of her husband's misdeeds then came to beg her grandmother not to desert them in their time of need, seeking support for them both. But Celia refused on grounds of Bass' incredible dishonesty, for financial dishonesty is of course not to be borne under any circumstances. Dan doubts they would be so keen for Blair to return to a husband who was not absurdly wealthy and titled.
"She said to Granny – so it seems, anyway – said her name was Charlotte Rhodes, and didn't that mean anything?"
"And what did Granny say to that?"
"You know how she is," Serena sighs. "That her name had been Bass when he covered her with jewels, and must stay Bass now that he's covered her with shame."
Dan lets out a slow breath. "Ah," he says. "Of course."
It becomes evident that Mrs. Rhodes is bound to recover, as she had from so many other illnesses, resilient as ever. Dan is useless except for the vague support he can offer Serena, which seems to mainly involve holding her hand while she listens, tight-lipped, to her mother go on and on about how Charlotte's duty is to her husband. Though he had been the one to do something disgraceful, it was her obligation as a wife to slink away into the shadows with him.
Dan pities Lola. He had never spent any great amount of time with her, but she had always been cordial to him, and seemingly pleasant in general. Not that it matters; her disposition carries little weight when the issue at hand is that she is another woman trapped in a bad marriage and made to suffer the consequences of it.
Dan knows Lola will never be able to divorce Bass. He regrets anew that he did not help Blair divorce the Count.
Serena's Aunt Carol emerges into the room tiredly, fortunately cutting off Lily's pontifications on the responsibilities of marriage. "She wants me to telegraph Blair," Carol informs the room at large. "We'd written to Blair, of course, but it seems that's not enough. Mother wants her to come immediately."
The announcement is received in silence. Mr. van der Woodsen finally says, as though it is a great burden, "I suppose it must be done."
"Of course it must be done," Serena interjects, a touch sharply. "Blair should rightfully be here, if that's what Granny wishes. Shall I write the telegram? If it goes at once, she can catch the morning train. Dan can take it to the telegraph office – can't you, Dan?"
He straightens and nods. "Yes, of course. Whatever you need done."
Serena nods in satisfaction before moving to the writing desk to dash off a quick note, blotting it and handing it to him. Then she pauses on the verge of speech and wets her lips. "What a pity that you and Blair will likely cross each other on the way." At his confusion, she adds, "As you are bound for Washington, and she bound for home."
Dan opens his mouth and closes it, feeling the weight of her eyes on him. "How could I possibly leave at a time like this?" he says. "It was only a silly pleasure trip. I'll stay – of course I'll stay."
Serena looks at him a moment longer but then nods, accepting that.
He leaves hastily for the telegraph office, confused conscience hanging heavy over ever step.
PART SEVEN
dan, blair, serena, others.
5923 words. a re-working of edith wharton's the age of innocence.
summary: He feels that there is a distance between them that cannot be crossed; they can merely shout words across the breadth of it and never get any closer.
note: Because of both Yuletide and the holiday prompts I do in December (which let me tell you are quite the undertaking), there's going to be a little break in the updating of this fic – probably a month or two. I'd like to get the next part up sometime in January but February seems more likely. These chapters do take a lot of work and I don't want to half-ass it or stress myself out over fanfic, so I'm budgeting in some post-holiday decompression time.
Boston is overheated in the dull way of true summer, with even the air breathlessly uncomfortable as it drags through the lungs, and the streets are empty except for the disgruntled few who couldn't afford to leave the city for the season. It is not the sort of place he can easily imagine Blair, but then again it's been so long since he's had call to imagine her anywhere.
Despite all this, there is an energetic quickness to Dan's step that he cannot deny or dispel.
Today is to be another stolen day. He could hardly begrudge himself a single day; he had been intending to return to New York early anyway, so the detour to Boston will hardly be missed in his schedule. No one need know. It is as though the day does not exist at all, a void in the calendar, a skip in time that Dan has neatly slid through. He can almost convince himself of all this ¬– almost.
The lying came with such ease that it startled Dan, and the rationalizations followed quick on its heels. He is ashamed of that, and yet what offends his sensibilities more is that he is not more ashamed. His desire to be here outweighs his morality and, for better or worse, he has come to understand the mindset of all those terrible husbands who sneak away from their ignorant wives.
The Buckley girl had told Dan that Blair was staying at the Parker House, so Dan goes there directly – only to be informed that Blair is out. He stands there a minute at the front desk before declining to leave a note and departing disheartened. He decides to take a walk through the Common. If nothing else, it will give him some time to gather himself before choosing his next move.
However, the decision is taken quite out of his hands as he spots Blair almost immediately upon entering the park.
It seems too perfectly picturesque a coincidence to be true. After all this time, nearly two years of absence and purposeful forgetting, here she is, sitting on a bench and reading a book. He could laugh at how stupid and simple it is.
He only wants to look at her for a moment. He sees her in profile, her face bent towards the book, shadowed by the gray silk sunshade she holds aloft in one gloved hand. Curls of glossy brown hair fall around her face, the rest of it haphazardly pinned at the base of her neck. Her dress is not quite as pristinely pressed as usual. Her expression is blank if a little joyless, and the image of her altogether is one of distinct lethargy. She is not quite the same.
He is caught. He doesn't know how to approach her, but he can't continue to just stand here. So he makes his throat work, makes his lips shape her name for the first time in such a long time, twist it up into a question: "Blair?"
Perhaps it is the use of her given name that startles her, though Dan likes to imagine the sound of his voice specifically has some effect. She doesn't stand but her back gets very straight, like a ruler. "Dan," she says.
"I'm –" He doesn't know what he is. He thinks he should have called her Countess Grimaldi instead. "I'm – I'm here on business. What a shock to stumble upon you, especially when we missed one another at Newport."
Her expression clears a little then, and she moves so he might sit beside her. "Yes, indeed." Once he's seated, she adds, "I'm here on business too. Only for two days, and without dear Dorota, so you'll have to excuse my appearance."
He sees her slightly mussed hair and well-worn dress in a new light, but decides he likes the look of it on her, finding a certain lushness in her disarray. There is also her voice, which had not remained in his memory even a little, not a note of it – a voice to which cruelty is as familiar as wit, with an almost singsong quality that he now recalls can lend itself to shrillness or cloying. He is so overwhelmed by her voice that there is a stagnant, horrible pause before he realizes he must speak. "Without your maid? How unconventional." Then, even more belatedly and much too softly, "I noticed your hair was different."
Her hand rises to touch it self-consciously. "I've come here to do something even more unconventional: refuse money that belongs to me."
His brow furrows. "Someone came here with an offer? And you refused?"
She nods.
"Because of the conditions?"
Blair's lips part but it is a moment before she says, "I refused."
"What were the conditions?"
She waves a hand, her gaze breaking from his for the first time since he said her name. "They weren't onerous; just to sit at the head of his table now and then."
Dan takes off his hat and fiddles with it in his hands before putting it back on. "He wants you back at any price?"
Blair makes a small, amused sound. "At a considerable price. At least it is considerable for me."
"Is he here now?"
She looks at him again and actually does laugh. "My husband? Oh, no; he's at Cowes this time of year. He merely sent someone."
"With a letter?"
"Just a message. I think he's only bothered to write once since I've returned." The curl of her lips becomes smaller and sadder, perhaps wistful. "He used to be a great writer of love letters, you know. Only after we were married I found out he never wrote them himself. Why write yourself when you've got secretaries to do it for you?"
Dan flushes just a little at his ears and the back of his neck. She had fled with a secretary. "And this – this emissary?"
"Might, for all I care, have left already, though he insisted on waiting until the evening on the chance…" She only gives a little shake of the head.
On the chance she changes her mind, Dan thinks. This unspoken statement ringing in both their ears, they fall silent, staring not at each other but straight ahead at the people passing by. He feels that there is a distance between them that cannot be crossed; they can merely shout words across the breadth of it and never get any closer.
Finally, Blair murmurs, "You're not changed."
Just as quietly, Dan replies, "I was, till I saw you again."
In his peripheral vision, he sees the slight contraction of her hand where it rests on her lap. "Am I changed?"
"Yes," he says. "Every time I see you, I find you greatly changed."
"Humphrey," she breathes. There's a warning in it. He had only answered a question she had asked.
"Let's go out on the bay, shall we?" he says suddenly, spontaneously. "It's so terribly hot. It'll be cooler out on the bay; there'll be a breeze. There's a steamboat that goes to Point Arley. We could –" He breaks off as his babbling catches up to him. But then, because he cannot help himself, "Haven't we done all we could?"
The effect these words have on Blair is instantaneous. "You mustn't say things like that to me."
His lips press together to keep himself from doing just that. Eventually he offers, "I'll say anything you like. Or nothing. I won't speak unless you tell me to. All I want is to listen to you."
To her voice which can be gently cruel and cruelly gentle.
Blair doesn't reply immediately, so Dan presses, "Just give me the day. You can get away from that man waiting for you."
She gives him a look equal parts quizzical and calculating. "You needn't be afraid. If I don't come."
He holds her gaze steadily. "Nor you either, if you do. I only want to talk, as we used to sometimes. It's been a hundred years since we met – it may be another hundred before we meet again."
Blair studies him, weighing his truth. "Why didn't you come down to get me the day you and Serena came to Granny's?"
Abashed, he glances away and back again. "I played a little game with myself. I saw you standing there at the pier and said to myself that I'd only come down if you turned before a sailboat crossed the lighthouse. But you didn't turn."
Blair's eyes are large and liquid. "But I didn't turn on purpose."
"Oh?"
"I went down to the beach to avoid you," she says. "To get as far away from you as I could."
Dan swallows. "I have no business in Boston. I only wanted to see you."
Softly, Blair says, "I know."
"We'll miss our boat if we linger here much longer," he says lightly, watches her waver one final time before giving in.
They go back to the hotel first so Blair can leave a note for the emissary while Dan secures a carriage to take them to the wharf. He had offered to take the note in for her, but Blair declined with a shake of the head, disappearing quickly through the doors and into the lobby. He waits for her restlessly, unable to bear even these few wasted minutes. His gaze is focused on the doors, each person who comes and goes, and he's a little startled when a familiar face appears quite unexpectedly. There's no time to dwell on it – Blair returns moments later and they hurry on to their destination – but the name comes to him unbidden: Carter Baizen had exited the hotel. How queer.
They arrive just in time to board the half-empty boat, and they both laugh a little like it's such a lucky thing. They move towards the bow, where Blair leans forward against the railing, into the cool breeze coming off the water. She has wound a veil around her hat but left her face bare, and Dan is unable to resist examining her a little in the bright summer light. He has never seen her in the summer before, instead attaching her always to lonely New York winters just beginning to encroach on sepia-toned autumns. Summer seems a stifling season for Blair with her pale face and sturdy gown, unlike Serena who blossoms like a flower at the first touch of sun.
He doesn't speak for fear of disturbing the delicate balance of her trust in him. He has no wish to betray that trust but knows all the wrong words are waiting at his lips to be spoken. There have been days and nights when the memory of their kiss has burned through him, or just the thought of her made his blood careen through his veins; still other days when he made himself blank and empty, if only to prevent her memory from filling him. But these are not the sorts of things he's supposed to say.
A strong gust of wind blows her veil back, a long ivory ribbon caught in the air. The only thing preventing it from flying away entirely is the end curled around her neck. Blair fusses with it as she tries to right it, only managing to tangle it further; with an immediacy borne from lack of thought, Dan reaches over to straighten it for her, smoothing the fabric and laying it correctly so it frames her face as it did before. She smiles her thanks but something in her eyes is very sad.
When they get off at Point Arley, they stop by the dining-room of an inn for a quiet talk disguised as an early lunch. Dan requests a private room, which opens prettily onto the verandah, the water a faint lullaby in the background. They sit across from one another, that illimitable distance widening between them once again, and begin a conversation that is more stops than starts. He doesn't offer much of himself, instead listening to Blair describe the last year and a half of her life.
She had grown tired of society; that much Serena had already told him. Blair became exhausted of trying and failing to fit into a New York that had become strange instead of welcoming – where the only steps she made were the wrong ones, if only because it was she who had made them. That was why she'd gone to Washington. It was a change of pace, at least.
"I never knew this side of New York," she admits. "Or, rather, I had known – known and not cared, because I had never experienced any of it. It was ignorant of me. It appears I don't have the patience or the strength to withstand it."
"I'm sure that isn't true," Dan says quietly. "It can be difficult, impossibly difficult, to find yourself on the outside looking in. Maybe worse for you. You had been inside before."
"You understand so well," she says with appreciation.
He smiles slightly, somewhat humorlessly. "It's what you used to dislike most about me," he remarks.
She bristles. "I was different then." Choosing her words with apparent care, she continues, "Once you said I didn't like you – and by that you meant all of you, all of our family. But I think it's you who doesn't like them. Because you aren't one of them, not really, not even now."
"No?" Dan says. "I bought all my clothes in London. I live in a well-appointed townhouse. I work for an important law firm, my children will all be Rhodes… It would stand that I have made myself a part of things."
"No," Blair affirms. "You know as well as I that no matter what you do, you're still Dan Humphrey from Brooklyn."
She doesn't say it cruelly, just very gently, but the effect is much the same.
"If we have no ability to escape our pasts, then why don't you go back to your husband?" he says. He isn't angry. It's only frustration. The frustration of being so near her and so far from her at once, the frustration at how she understands and yet does not – it's unbearable.
Blair levels him with a genuinely unreadable look. "I believe it's because of you."
The confession is made as dispassionately as a passing comment on the weather.
"I want to be perfectly honest with you," she goes on, in a much firmer tone, "and with myself. I want to explain. I'm not sure you understand just how much you've helped me, what you've made of me – I don't know how to explain myself, but it seems I never understood before how even the most exquisite pleasures hid such baseness – how there is so much sensitivity and compassion in someone like you –"
"Someone like me," he muses, interrupting her. "What could someone like me have made of someone like you? And what of what you've done to me? For I'm of your making much more than you ever were of mine."
Her cheek had paled before under his spiteful questioning, but now a flush rises to its surface. "Of my making?"
"Oh yes," Dan says. "I'm the man who married one woman because another one told him to."
Displeasure reveals itself in the downturned curve of her mouth. "I thought you promised not to say such things to me today."
"Then I suppose I made a promise I could not keep."
"Like all men, then," Blair says testily. "Like your promises to Serena, your vows to her."
His chair scrapes across wood as he rises, moving to the railing of the verandah, dry and warm beneath his hands. He murmurs, unable to suppress his bitterness, "We must always think of Serena."
Blair still sits, but her hands are on the arms of the chair as though she wants to push off them to standing. "Mustn't we?"
He turns back to face her. "What's the use? You gave me a glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment asked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond enduring – that's all."
"Don't say that," Blair reprimands, "When I'm enduring it!"
Her eyes are shining in the slanting afternoon light, and they are anything but dispassionate now. Anger had brightened her countenance, brought life into her face, and now anguish has made her acutely beautiful. Her face has become a book open for his perusal with pages as familiar to him as any he had penned himself. It overwhelms him, douses the fire of his own vexation, and leaves him suddenly stranded.
"You too," he says, a realization he had somehow missed, seeing only his own pain. "All this time, you too?"
Blair blinks tears from her eyes. "I never took you for a stupid man, Humphrey – even when my opinion of you was not so high."
Dan takes his seat again and sees her relax minutely, the tension dissipating from her limbs. One of her slim white hands, ringed as always, rests on that impossible distance between them and he reaches out to cover it with his own. She turns her palm to his, her fingertips just curling round his wrist. He feels much closer to her and simultaneously all the farther.
"You won't go back?"
Blair sighs and takes her hand away. "I won't. Not as long as you hold out." She raises her gaze to his. "I have been where she would be. I know this pain. I choose now not to inflict it."
"And that's all there is to be?" Dan asks. He already knows the answer but cannot help the small, stupid, desperate part of him that wants a different one. "For either of us?"
"Well; it is all, isn't it?" As though to soothe the sting, she touches his hand lightly one more time. "Don't be unhappy."
I cannot promise it, he thinks, though he keeps the words at bay. He knows their time in this little shuttered room is over; the day he asked for has passed. There is nothing more he can do except leave their future in her care, asking only that she keep fast hold of it.
He wants to kiss her but knows it to be impossible. Her decision is clear: she will stay near him as long as he never asks her to come nearer. She will let him be untrue to his wife in his heart as long as he isn't in any other way – because he has won Blair with kindness, and to betray Serena would also be the ultimate betrayal of the man she believes him to be.
Dan does not think himself so kind or good, only selfish.
Yet as they ride the steamboat back to their respective lives and destinies, a kind of tranquility does settle over him. The day had been a failure. The only thing separating now from before are the terms of their detachment; his heartache has found no solace or solution. Nevertheless, he does feel soothed. Blair has found a way to keep them loyal to those they love without their continued lying to themselves or each other, and she has drawn the exact line in the sand that he must honor. There is some comfort in that.
He can be near Blair without having her. Being near her can be enough.
* * *
August gives way to autumn, which in turn ices over for winter. Serena's family goes to St. Augustine but for the first time she remains behind, bundled up in furs at Dan's side. Dan spends his time at work, taking on the bulk of the responsibilities in Mr. van der Woodsen's absence, or otherwise in his study, eternally catching up on his reading. Even now, he doesn't feel entirely at home in the house purchased and decorated for them by Serena's parents. With the exception of the study, of course – Serena had been charmingly adamant that it remain entirely his. For that he was glad, because the rest of the townhouse bore no mark of him at all.
It has been four months since he last saw Blair. He wrote her once asking when he might see her again, and she replied simply, "Not yet."
Dan has begun to build a little fortress of thoughts and desires: the books he reads, the dreams he cultivates privately, the judgments he makes and prejudices he argues – he brings them all to Blair in his thoughts, composing countless letters he never writes or sends. He knows he has begun to pull too far from the reality of his life, if it could still be called that. Serena looks at him with concern. He rather wishes she had gone on to St. Augustine as usual, if not to save him from her tenderness than to give herself a respite from having to be tender.
Still, she has a few venues in New York that can offer her better amusement than he can. It has become the thing to do to go to Mrs. Ivy Dickens' on Sunday evenings, a trend the older society women bemoan as much they do new fads in fashion. Even Jenny has gone along once or twice with Serena, despite her protestations of the scandal when it was only Blair who went. But in the recent few months, Mrs. Dickens' loud clothes and Sunday soirées are pale gossip when compared to the apparent plight of the Basses – a topic anyone who is anyone seems to relish.
No one really likes Bass, so when trouble descended upon him people were inclined to feel schadenfreude before they felt sympathy. But this had gone beyond French mistresses being sent on expensive vacations: his bad investments appeared to be getting ever worse, and the idea of him bringing financial dishonor on his wife's family was nearly too shocking to be enjoyed.
"I do feel rather bad for poor Charlotte," Penelope says to the assembled dinner party, not sounding particularly sorry. "But what could one really expect, marrying a man like that?"
Dan is even less inclined than the general populace to feel any sympathy in regards to Chuck Bass, but he does find it curious (to say the least) how everyone was willing to turn a blind eye to Bass' exploits when his wealth and his wife's popularity reigned supreme; now that he lacks the appropriate financial backing, the story has changed. But isn't that always the case in this city?
"And do you know what else –"
Penelope continues to hand-deliver the good gossip once everyone has rumbled agreement to her statements about "poor Charlotte," leaning in a little to truly revel in the attention of the table.
"I've heard Carter Baizen is back in New York! It's been absolute eons since he's stepped foot in the States – he was seen escorting his sister Caroline, which must mean the Baizens are seeing fit to restore his inheritance –"
Dan seeks out Serena's reaction immediately, but finds her inattentive, absorbed in conversation with Jenny – though a moment later her gaze darts to Dan's, a vague question in the look. In truth, Dan had already known of Carter's return to the city.
He had seen Carter first over a week ago, exiting the townhouse just before Dan returned there from work. He probably would not have caught Carter at all had he not left a little early that day. He could only assume Carter was there to meet with Serena, and had those suspicions confirmed when she didn't mention the visit once. He would have liked to see her express surprise at Penelope's announcement, just to further compound the secret of it – but that's an unkind wish.
Dan had felt a torrent of uneasy and uncategorized emotions upon seeing another man leaving his home. He knew Serena had something of a past with Carter and, without knowing the specifics, it had been enough to bring a visible change on her when they met Carter on their honeymoon. It could be possible that Dan's emotional distance from her had driven her into the arms of an old lover – it was more than possible, in Dan's mind. And he did not know how to feel about such a possibility.
It would be hypocritical for Dan to feel jealousy, but competing emotions can often be experienced at once with no care for the logic of it. So he did feel jealous, at least a little; she is his wife, after all. There was also a sense of relief that she might find comfort with another, if only because it would be an alleviation of his own guilt. Maybe she had loved Carter all the while, but been unable or unwilling to wed him.
Or it could be none of those things – perhaps Carter had seen Dan in Boston and come to reveal the fact to Dan's wife.
After Penelope's announcement at dinner, Carter's appearance in New York no longer has the air of secrecy about it, so Dan feels able to approach him. He arranges the meeting for the club, where they can speak with a veil of insouciance. Carter sees through this immediately, but deigns to humor Dan anyway.
"Are you here to play knight in shining armor?" he asks between a puff of his cigarette and swallow of his whiskey. "You needn't bother; as I'm sure she told you, it was only family business."
Dan bites his tongue, but his expression must give him away, for Carter raises a slow eyebrow and adds, "Unless she hasn't told you, that is. Well. I suppose you aren't really a part of things – are you?"
Dan frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Amused, Carter gives a careless shrug. "Not a thing, Humphrey. Here, I'll soothe your fears: I went to Serena to speak of her cousin, who I'd seen lately on business."
With keen clarity, Dan recalls Carter leaving the Parker House in Boston. "You were Count Grimaldi's messenger?"
Carter's amusement grows into a small smile. "Was I right in thinking I saw you in Boston, then, Humphrey?"
Dan ignores this. "So you delivered your message; what did you have to say of it to Serena?"
Carter grounds out his cigarette. "I've long been an agent of both sides, so to speak. I do a little work now and then for the Count, have done for years – in between disinheritances, one must take up some position, you understand – and so I was able to offer aid once to the Countess on Serena's behalf. Serena's a good girl and she worried, you know, considering what she suspected the Count to be like – so she asked me to help and I did."
Dan is unable to keep from gaping a little. He had had no inkling that Carter Baizen, of all people, had been in any way involved in the entire situation, let alone that he had been the secretary who helped Blair flee in the first place.
"And I knew Madame Grimaldi's family would not take kindly to her refusal of the Count's offer, so I came by to… Well, to keep Serena abreast of the situation, to see to it Blair had some support for her decision. But of course Serena didn't require my prodding." He glances at Dan. "Whatever I was once, I'm only an old friend now – very old, practically ancient – so you needn't worry I'm after your wife." He seems to consider this. "Well, not after her too much."
It occurs to Dan that this is all information that has been purposefully kept from him. By the family, no doubt – Dan's open disagreement on all topics related to Blair and her husband unsurprisingly excluded him from further discussions, but he hadn't anticipated Serena keeping such things from him.
The only thing Dan can think to say is, "Are you still in the Count's employ?"
"Ah, no," Carter says. "My father has decided he wants a son again, so I can be a shiftless gentleman once more."
"If only we were all so lucky to have occupations so suited to our talents," Dan says. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Good evening."
Dan knew Blair was further from her family's good graces than before. Even Mrs. Rhodes had failed to defend her in wake of her final refusal to return to her husband and had cut her allowance drastically. Nate's family, apparently holding an eternal grudge, had taken some pleasure in it:
"Who knows what she's living on now," scoffed Nate's mother, "Shame she didn't get that divorce; at least then she might have remarried richly."
Dan is agitated in the wake of his conversation with Carter, beginning several letters to Blair that he ultimately discards. It isn't just concern for her and how she's living that motivates him; his ugly selfishness is rearing its head once again. Perhaps another afternoon with her will once again clear his mind and settle his conscience.
Over a quiet, private dinner with Serena, he broaches the topic. "I thought," he begins, voice startling in the silence. He clears his throat and starts over, much softer. "I have been giving so much time to my work lately, as you know… It leaves me such little time to get any real writing done. I thought I might take something of a short holiday… Just a day or so." He clears his throat again. "Possibly in Washington."
Serena looks at him over the flicker of candle-flames. "The change will do you good," she says finally. "But you must be sure to go and see Blair." Her attention falls back to her plate. "You know I always want you to have time to write."
Quiet settles over them like the dusting of snow on the ground outside. Once they had shared confessions readily, revealing hidden affection and love and worry the way lovers were supposed to. Some time after their wedding this had stopped and now Dan isn't sure how to relearn the language of it. He remembers her brutal honesty in the orange grove, her determination to be open with him; he wonders why now she keeps secrets about old friends, why she doesn't just ask him if she is curious about his behavior of late.
He wonders why he makes no confessions himself, and says nothing.
* * *
Chuck Bass was not an honorable man but he did always seem to manage to slink away from any blame laid at his feet for anything, so it is quite a surprise when his failure promises to be one of the most discreditable in the history of Wall Street. Dan's office is abuzz with news of it on Monday morning.
"It'll hit just about everyone we know," Serena's father guarantees darkly. "He had a hand in everyone's business, and kept assuring the lot that everything was up to snuff, going along as planned. Little did they know!"
The bad news only continues to roll in: around mid-afternoon, Mr. van der Woodsen comes to Dan's desk to collect him, waving about a telegram he'd just received from his wife. With an economy of phrasing, it read, Mother had slight stroke last night. Please come at once.
They leave work immediately, traveling uptown to find Mrs. Rhodes' house busy with doctors and relatives. Serena is pale and worried but, even with whatever is going on between them, her expression becomes instantly relieved as soon as she sees Dan. She puts her arms around him, neglecting a hello to tell him in a rushed, quiet voice what had gone on in this house the night before.
"Apparently Lola – Charlotte – came to see her late last night," Serena murmurs, tugging Dan further into the room. "The butler said they spoke maybe an hour before Lola left, and Granny went to bed as usual, but in the middle of the night the bell rang and they found her in her room…" Serena is wan but hopeful. "She's already regaining control of her facial muscles, the doctor said. And she was able to tell Mother a bit –"
It seems Charlotte Bass had discovered the extent of her husband's misdeeds then came to beg her grandmother not to desert them in their time of need, seeking support for them both. But Celia refused on grounds of Bass' incredible dishonesty, for financial dishonesty is of course not to be borne under any circumstances. Dan doubts they would be so keen for Blair to return to a husband who was not absurdly wealthy and titled.
"She said to Granny – so it seems, anyway – said her name was Charlotte Rhodes, and didn't that mean anything?"
"And what did Granny say to that?"
"You know how she is," Serena sighs. "That her name had been Bass when he covered her with jewels, and must stay Bass now that he's covered her with shame."
Dan lets out a slow breath. "Ah," he says. "Of course."
It becomes evident that Mrs. Rhodes is bound to recover, as she had from so many other illnesses, resilient as ever. Dan is useless except for the vague support he can offer Serena, which seems to mainly involve holding her hand while she listens, tight-lipped, to her mother go on and on about how Charlotte's duty is to her husband. Though he had been the one to do something disgraceful, it was her obligation as a wife to slink away into the shadows with him.
Dan pities Lola. He had never spent any great amount of time with her, but she had always been cordial to him, and seemingly pleasant in general. Not that it matters; her disposition carries little weight when the issue at hand is that she is another woman trapped in a bad marriage and made to suffer the consequences of it.
Dan knows Lola will never be able to divorce Bass. He regrets anew that he did not help Blair divorce the Count.
Serena's Aunt Carol emerges into the room tiredly, fortunately cutting off Lily's pontifications on the responsibilities of marriage. "She wants me to telegraph Blair," Carol informs the room at large. "We'd written to Blair, of course, but it seems that's not enough. Mother wants her to come immediately."
The announcement is received in silence. Mr. van der Woodsen finally says, as though it is a great burden, "I suppose it must be done."
"Of course it must be done," Serena interjects, a touch sharply. "Blair should rightfully be here, if that's what Granny wishes. Shall I write the telegram? If it goes at once, she can catch the morning train. Dan can take it to the telegraph office – can't you, Dan?"
He straightens and nods. "Yes, of course. Whatever you need done."
Serena nods in satisfaction before moving to the writing desk to dash off a quick note, blotting it and handing it to him. Then she pauses on the verge of speech and wets her lips. "What a pity that you and Blair will likely cross each other on the way." At his confusion, she adds, "As you are bound for Washington, and she bound for home."
Dan opens his mouth and closes it, feeling the weight of her eyes on him. "How could I possibly leave at a time like this?" he says. "It was only a silly pleasure trip. I'll stay – of course I'll stay."
Serena looks at him a moment longer but then nods, accepting that.
He leaves hastily for the telegraph office, confused conscience hanging heavy over ever step.
PART SEVEN