So far, nothing new from last year or the year before, you may be thinking, but you would be mistaken. Standing out from Mr. Ward McAllister’s carefully vetted guest list were two Scotch women who are fast becoming the toast of the Metropolis. Mrs. Marion Scrymgeour, a widow of ample years and girth, partook of the cold and the hot supper with some gusto but entirely forsook the dancing. Foreign travel with her deceased spouse, a minor diplomat, has given this widow a wealth of irreverent anecdotes which she tells with a great deal of self-deprecating humor and none of the tedious boastfulness which, alas, certain more noted diplomatic wives adopt.

Mrs. Scrymgeour arrived in the city with Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott, who, unlike her traveling companion, wears her twenty-one years exceedingly well. Her noble birth and her close friendship with two of the Royal Princesses have brought her a deluge of invitations, but it is her most charming personality, her forthright manner, and her ready wit which will ensure she receives a good many more.

Lady Margaret, a woman of independent means and intentions, plans to set up her own establishment with the doughty Mrs. Scrymgeour. Widowers with thoughts of paying their compliments be warned, however. We have it from a very reliable source that neither of these ladies intend to abandon their current solitary status.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

New York, March 1868

SINCE THEIR ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK, Margaret and Marion had accepted invitations to countless balls and soirées, afternoon teas and dinners. They had attended an Offenbach operetta at the magnificent, newly opened Pike’s Opera House, a piano recital at Steinway Hall, and had the honour of sharing Mrs. William Astor’s box at the Academy of Music for a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor. For two women both starved, for very different reasons, of a social life, the warmth of their reception, the generosity of their various hosts, and the sheer variety of entertainments on offer made their first few weeks in this new country a giddy delight. New York society was governed by as many unwritten rules and conventions as its London equivalent, but to Mr. McAllister’s barely disguised chagrin, New Yorkers seemed inclined to be indulgent of Margaret’s inadvertent breaches of the strict rules of etiquette for which he took personal responsibility.

The social whirl had left little time for the business of house-hunting, so when the manager of the Fifth Avenue Hotel had discreetly offered the ladies a discounted rate for an annual lease of the suite they occupied, Margaret thought it worth considering. That was, until he revealed the so-called bargain rate, which was considerably more than her entire annual allowance.

“And to think I believed myself wealthy,” she had said to Marion, still in a state of shock.