New York - The Novel

she’d have had a chance. Well, it was no good worrying about that now. And taken all together, she considered, it wasn’t such a bad retirement for a girl who’d been raised within sight of Five Points.
    Five Points. What if His Lordship asked her where she’d been born and raised? What was she supposed to say? “Down Fourth Avenue,” Sean had told her. But the thought of those days, and the memories that came with them, had filled her with an awful, cold horror. She’d blush, she’d say something foolish, she’d expose the sordid truth about the family and let them all down. “Don’t worry,” Sean had said. “Leave it all to me.”
    It wasn’t so bad for Sean. He already knew these people. After losing his wife three years ago, he’d taken up travel, and he’d made a trip to London the previous year with his son Daniel and his family. That’s when Daniel’s daughter Clarissa had met young Gerald Rivers. She was a well-brought-up young lady, a good horsewoman, and she’d been hunting when she’d met him. He had just returned from a visit to America himself, and was soon captivated by her lively American ways. His parents must have taken note of her obvious fortune too. But Gerald and Clarissa were both young, and it had been agreed by all the parties that they should wait some months before any negotiations were entered into about an engagement.
    When Sean had first told Mary about the business, she hadn’t been that surprised. Everyone knew about the British aristocracy’s new interest in American heiresses; Sean himself had described it very well.
    “They’re just trying to get some of their money back from the place it went to,” he’d said. For since the canals and railroads had opened up the American Midwest, the cheap imports of American grain and meat to England had undercut all the local producers. The value of England’s mighty, historic harvests had plummeted, and the lordly incomes whichhad supported the aristocracy’s huge houses were only a fraction of what they had been. You could hardly blame them, then, if they looked across the Atlantic where there was now a plentiful supply of heiresses whose mothers were eager to trade them. And the heiresses usually had more education and were livelier company than the English country girls.
    “But what’s in it for the Americans?” Mary had asked her brother.
    He’d shrugged. “When a man’s made a fortune, and bought all the things he wants in America, he looks around for other worlds to conquer. So what’s left? He turns to Europe and sees things that can’t be had in America. Centuries of art, ancient manners, titles. So he buys them. It’s something to do. And of course, for the mothers, it becomes a social competition.”
    Mary wondered whether the girls themselves were always happy. She remembered reading about the marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt to the Duke of Marlborough. It had been a great society event, a triumph for Consuelo’s mother. And the bridegroom had received some Vanderbilt millions, so that he could keep his great palace up. But she remembered hearing the other side of the story from Hetty Master.
    “Poor Consuelo’s entirely in love with Winthrop Rutherfurd, you know. He’s from fine old American stock, but her mother was just determined to have a title in the family—she actually locked the poor girl up, and forced her to marry the duke. Consuelo was weeping during the wedding ceremony. It was really shameful.”
    Clarissa wasn’t in love with anybody else, anyway. Indeed, she’d taken a great liking to Lord Rivers’s second son. He was a handsome young fellow, an officer in a good regiment, who liked the outdoor life. Not a bad prospect, if he had some money to go with it. Sean, who had three granddaughters, seemed to find it amusing.
    “But she’s Catholic,” Mary had pointed out, “and he’s sure to be Church of England.”
    “That’s up to Clarissa,” said Sean. “Her father says he don’t care.”
    “And her mother?”
    “Her mother,” Sean said quietly, “would like her to marry the son of a lord.”
    It had come as rather a surprise when Lord and Lady Rivers had announced their intention to visit America themselves. But Sean had quickly made arrangements that suited them admirably. A few days inNew York, followed by a steamer up the Hudson, some days in Saratoga, and then across to Boston, which they had expressed a wish to see.
    While Lord Rivers was in New York, Sean