Rumors l-2

by Anna Godbersen

  “No! No, no, no.” Tristan moved closer to her on the settee and gave her a reassuring look. Down below, people who could not afford to stay in the hotel but still wanted to look grand were arriving for luncheon. “That would be a bit like killing the golden goose, wouldn’t it?”

  Lina blinked thoughtfully, turning this over. It still seemed too wild. She had labored since childhood to win the attentions of a boy who worked in a carriage house — how on earth would she hold the interest of a man whose love life was the stuff of gossip columns? In a few days, no less. “But how can I go on without any money? The bills you brought me alone, not to mention I’ll be removed from the hotel on Friday when I can’t pay….”

  “You are too easily defeated. That we will have to cure you of. I really should have caught you earlier and saved you from yourself — nobody pays on time. They must consider you a very eccentric heiress indeed here at the New Netherland! This is one of the chief characteristics of rich people: that they don’t know what things cost and forget all the time that they are supposed to pay for them. With just a little gall you will be able to put them off long enough to find yourself in a position where Mr. Longhorn is footing your bill. And then you — and I — will really be in the money.”

  Lina nodded, a little confusedly. She couldn’t help but feel somewhat nervous and exposed listening to this plot. But it was some kind of relief that Tristan was still there, even though he knew her real identity. She didn’t mind entertaining his schemes, however crazy they were, just for a little while. It made her feel not entirely destitute, listening to his ideas for her, and she began to feel that perhaps there was a way for her to get just a little of that money back. Not all of it, just enough to buy a ticket west. Then she would go off to find Will, and leave all of her mistakes behind her in New York.

  Twenty Four

  Property has ever been a fluid concept — just ask the wife of the Wall Street speculator who writes her party invitations on Marie Antoinette’s escritoire.

  — MRS. L. A. M. BRECKINRIDGE, THE LAWS OF BEING IN WELL-MANNERED CIRCLES

  THE WHISTLE BLEW, AND LOUD SHOUTS OF “ALL aboard!” could be heard up and down the platform. Inside the simple wooden waiting room, in the small mountain town where Will and Elizabeth had disembarked, benches emptied and hats were clutched as travelers ran for the lumbering iron beast that was preparing to depart again. The table between Will and Elizabeth had uneven legs, and every time one of them put an agitated elbow on its unvarnished top, their glasses of lemonade threatened to spill over. Finally the train left the station, causing all of the windows to shake in their frames but bestowing some quiet on Elizabeth’s thoughts.

  Will stood first and went to the window, where he took his time assessing the length of the platform and anyone who remained on it. He waited until the steam cleared and then he turned to where Elizabeth sat, folded into the camel wrap with flannel lining that she had worn the day she left New York. He stretched his long, taut arms over his head before moving his hands to the back of his neck, where he collected his overgrown hair and tucked it into the collar of his plaid shirt.

  Will made a whistling sound of relief and smiled so that his fine, strong teeth showed. “He’s gone, Lizzie,” Will called, “so you can stop looking so frightened.”

  Elizabeth tried to smile. She stood and went to him, and then looked out the window as though Will’s statement needed some kind of verification. She did feel less frightened, but it hardly settled her mind. On the other end of the room the lunch-counter workers, who had been selling pie and sliced-chicken sandwiches, were closing up. The newsagent was counting his take.

  “Thank goodness,” she said finally, wishing her relief didn’t sound so thin.

  “And now we have twelve hours before the next train comes. Just time enough to find a little chapel and get hitched, I’d say.” Will laughed, although she knew he was at least partially in earnest. That moment back in New York when he had knelt to propose to her — this was just after she had become engaged to Henry — was still wincingly fresh in her mind. “You could be Mrs. Keller for real on the next car we ride.”

  Elizabeth lowered her eyes and swallowed, the sound of which was unbearably loud in her own ears at least. A few days ago this would have seemed a very romantic suggestion, but at the moment it brought back all the old feelings. The old guilt, from the days when Will was so desirable and true and she was the hypocrite favorite of New York’s ruling class. She put her hand into her pocket and folded it around the ring.

  “Or we could go on living in sin.” His voice was softer this time, but had not entirely lost its humor.

  “No, I—”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s that I don’t know what we’ll find in New York. Or how Mother really is or what kind of trouble Diana has gotten into.” Elizabeth had to close her eyes to keep herself from crying. She drew the wrap closer around her with one hand and tightened her fist over the ring with the other. “I’ve been imagining the worst. And I’m worried about money. What if we get there and they’re going to be thrown out of the house, and they can’t afford any medicine, and—”

  “Hush. There’s no reason to think things are so bad. All we know is what the papers say, and you know that they exaggerate. And anyway, I have some money.”

  “I know, but Will…” Elizabeth looked at him and then shifted her eyes to the rough-hewn floorboards. She ran her fingers along the table that they had just been sitting at. “I have something I didn’t tell you about. Something I was planning on selling, in Oakland. Something that might make all the difference to my family.”

  She looked up at Will, who was watching her and waiting. Besides the faint chatting of the newsagent and the lemonade salesgirl, the room was silent.

  “My engagement ring.” Her voice broke over the word. “From Henry Schoonmaker.”

  Elizabeth had avoided even saying that name out loud to Will since they had left New York. She disliked doing it now, and it was plain on his face that he found the sound of it distasteful too. “Oh.”

  Now she spoke fast, hoping to bring him away from that maudlin precipice he was surely now approaching. “Not because I want it, Will — because it’s worth a great deal of money, because I thought maybe we would need it and I didn’t know how I was ever going to find you and…” Her voice trailed off. “But I did find you.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you get lost.” Will still hadn’t met her eyes yet, and his jaw was set so that it emerged prominently over his neck.

  “I know,” Elizabeth replied. She didn’t like how small her voice had gotten, but she couldn’t help it.

  “I’m not angry, Lizzie, don’t be like that. It’s just not a nice memory is all. I would have liked to have been the one to give you that ring.”

  It was late in the afternoon and the light coming in from the windows on either side of the station was moody and blue, but Elizabeth found that she was radiating in her old way despite all that. “I don’t even like that ring.”

  “You don’t?” Will met her eyes now, and there was the suggestion of a smile just waiting to emerge.

  “No.” She reached for his hands and took them both up, swinging her arms to lighten his mood. “I would have thrown it in the river with my old self if I didn’t have a practical streak. But I do — that part of me wants to sell the ring. Just in case my family really needs that money. Just in case.”

  The arc of a line had emerged between the left corner of Will’s mouth and his left nostril. His large hands were holding on to her dainty ones, and they swung their arms back and forth a few more times just thinking of what they would yet do together. “Someday I’m going to buy you just the kind of ring you want.”

  “I know,” Elizabeth whispered. “I know you will.”

  “In the meantime, let’s go sell that ring, get it off both our minds.” Will dropped her hands and put an arm over her shoulder, drawing her toward the far door of the waiting room, which
led away from the train platform and into town. “That way you can stop worrying, putting lines in that famous complexion of yours.”

  “But how will we know where to go? We’ve never been here before,” Elizabeth said, even as they moved across the floor.

  “All train stations are the same,” he answered, his jovial tone fully restored to him. “Surrounded by saloons and pawnshops, so that people desperate to get away can sell what they have. Or have a drink while they wait. We aren’t desperate, though, neither of us. We’re going to get a good price for that ring. It’s caused enough trouble, and now it’s going to give us something back.”

  Elizabeth, tucked in under Will’s shoulder and headed into a snow-covered place she had never seen before, began to feel all right again. She felt truly calm for the first time since Diana’s telegram had arrived. They were wrapped up in their coats, which made them look a little put together despite everything, and they could already feel the bracing air just outside and the whole future just beyond it.

  Twenty Five

  D—

  I am so sorry I wasn’t able to

  visit you yesterday or the day before.

  My father has placed me on house

  arrest. I would have written sooner,

  but even my correspondence is being

  monitored. Will you come tonight?

  Nine o’clock, the same place as before.

  — HS

  “WHO IS THE NOTE FROM?”

  Diana, who was sitting too close to the fire in her family drawing room, raised her eyes as though she were coming out of a daytime sleep. For a few moments her thoughts had been entirely elsewhere, further uptown, in the greenhouse where she’d once spent the night, in that perfect presence. The most exciting presence she’d ever known. Her lids fluttered and she realized that the side of her body facing the flames had grown hot and red. She folded the note hastily and put it in the pocket of the honeydew-colored dress she had worn only the week before. The dress, which had been a witness to feelings entirely opposite of what she was experiencing now, had been her mother’s decision that night and this evening, as well.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she told Snowden, who was sitting across from her in a dull black jacket that seemed deliberately chosen to accentuate his less urban qualities. “What were you saying…?”

  “I was saying that the ways in which I am prepared to help you and your family are not a charity…” Snowden went on, looking vaguely pleased with himself. It was a point he seemed at pains to make, and to which Diana was surely obliged to listen, as she feared Edith, stationed in the near background and pretending to read from a book of sermons, might remind her if her attention lapsed. For he had bought more wood than they could burn all winter, and stocked the pantries, and erected in the corner of the room a Christmas tree that brought a sense of festivity to the Holland house that would have been unthinkable the day before. “Your father and my business interests were of course entangled, and our holdings in the Klondike were for a time difficult to decipher….”

  Diana smiled mistily and focused her eyes on the dust brown collar of Snowden’s shirt so she would appear to be paying attention even as she allowed her thoughts to drift. She had been dreamy and agitated since their guest had arrived, trying not to seem rude or dismissive but unable to banish the image or idea of Henry for even a moment. Of course, when he had not come to visit on Wednesday and then again on Thursday — as he had so clearly promised on Tuesday night — her yearning had grown and she had not been able to eat, and by evening she had felt tingly and weak. It had been a sweet, almost unbearable state of confusion. She was certain that this time she had not misjudged Henry, however, and his note — which had been delivered by some anonymous man, just as darkness was falling, and then brought to her by a distracted Claire — had finally vindicated this assumption.

  She was lucky in a way that Snowden was there, because all of his projects to make the house better kept her busy and prevented her imagination from wandering too far in any direction, although she did not in truth want to be distracted.

  “What a time we had on the Klondike, though…” Snowden was saying.

  She did not ask herself why Henry’s father had put him on house arrest. She only imagined that he must be experiencing a kind of torture, as she was, and that his intentions and desires were also shifted to the greenhouse with the simple brass frame bed. Diana wondered if there were a way to calculate this division of self — what percentage of her body and spirit was there in the drawing room of No. 17 Gramercy Park South, what percentage was transported to that perfect place with the arched glass ceiling where she was close enough to Henry that she could smell his clean, faintly cologned skin. Certainly more than half. The arrival of that note, which was now safely hidden in her pocket, had so captured her senses that she could almost feel the delicate play of Henry’s fingertips along her arm.

  “Of course, that was only one of our adventures. We went looking for fortunes in South Africa and Cal-ee-for-nye-ay.”

  Diana shifted in her seat and nodded vaguely. This weak attempt at humor did not please her. Meanwhile, the line of Henry’s chin was as clear in her mind as the white line of the mantel on which Snowden rested his stubby elbow. She could see the exact shade of his eyes, although she would not have been able to answer whether Snowden’s were blue, green, or brown. The objects in the room she occupied — a room she had seen daily for all of her life — were indistinct, but she was already mentally mapping the route she would take out of the house, the route that would take her to Henry. She had already planned what she would wear and what she was prepared to give him.

  “Diana, are you well?”

  “Yes,” Diana answered, startled. She decided she should appear convincing and so reiterated the sentiment. “Very well.”

  “Good. You looked faint for a moment, but if you are feeling well, then there is something your mother and I have discussed. We have talked about how well I knew your father, his affections and hopes for his daughters — hopes that now fall exclusively on you. We have discussed what Mr. Holland thought appropriate and true, and we decided that at this juncture it would be wise to show the world how lovely — and how well — you are. We shall dispel the rumors about the Hollands having to hide in poverty. You and I will thus have dinner tonight at Sherry’s, with your aunt Edith as chaperone. The world will see how beautiful you look — have I told you, by the way, how beautifully you wear that dress?” Snowden reached inside the breast of his jacket and removed a small oblong box. “It will go very well with this, don’t you think?”

  Diana watched as he pulled back the black velvet lid and revealed a delicate pearl choker that, on another day, she might have readily agreed would go very well with her dress.

  “But — tonight?” she started, her cheeks slackening. She was all of a sudden back in the parlor with all the dark woodwork and the olive-colored walls. Her skin was being scorched by the fire, and, try as she might, she could not recover her flight of fancy. She was only, horribly, here. A quiver of disappointment shot through her. Tonight she was supposed to be with Henry, in his greenhouse, but she would not even have time to send him a note explaining her absence.

  Snowden, if he noticed, was not deterred. “Yes — has there ever been a more perfect time for it? The reservation is for nine o’clock,” he said as he moved to hook the double string of pearls at the nape of her neck. Diana’s face was cast into shadow as Snowden’s torso moved in toward her and she took the opportunity to grimace for all the things she would miss. The pearls were cold against her skin, and the clasp made a sound of sick finality as it snapped shut.

  Twenty Six

  …at the same gathering, the enchanting Miss Diana Holland was seen chatting intimately with Mr. Teddy Cutting. She’s also been spotted recently at the opera with Spencer Newburg and skating in the park with Percival Coddington. One might infer that Mrs. Holland is looking to make a match? Of course, Cutting’s position,
fortune, and age make him the most suitable of these suitors….

  — FROM THE “GAMESOME GALLANT” COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1899

  HENRY CROSSED HIS LEGS AND SHIFTED IN THE wooden rocker that was positioned so as to casually access a view into the long main room of the Schoonmaker greenhouse. He was wearing trousers with whisper-thin pinstripes and a cream shirt fastened at the wrist with cuff links that bore his initials. Dressing well was a habit for Henry, but he had put extra care into what he wore that particular Friday evening. This despite the fact that he was on house arrest, after celebrating his renewed hopes for a life with Diana Holland with a group of drunken Christmas carolers. He had brought extra blankets to the gardener’s old bedroom himself and lit the small wood-burning stove, but still he was concerned that Diana, when she came, would not be warm enough.

  He had been stuck inside the house for two days, during which time he had done little but experience a building frustration and dream of Diana. He had rallied all his ingenuity to find a way to slip her a note without his father getting mind of it.

  Of course now it was well past the appointed time, and there was still no sign of her. He had gone out twice to sneak along the gate and look for her, but a prolonged presence there would only have given him away. Since then he’d had a good hour to contemplate whether this was the longest he had ever waited for a woman. While it far outdistanced the third occasion, it only came in second, after an evening one summer in Newport when he waited for a woman whose smile gleamed with the same pristine glory as her wedding ring and who, the hours finally proved, was never going to show up. He had already known in his heart that she wasn’t coming, and as such was so thoroughly boozed up that he wouldn’t have been allowed to return to gentle company anyway. He instead lay back in the grass and thought maudlin thoughts about love and matrimony and how he would never engage in either.