The Luxe l-1

by Anna Godbersen

  The balance of the carriage shifted as Henry sat down beside her, and Diana across from them. Then she heard a crack of a whip and the horses bolted into action. They were being pulled forward, and not at a leisurely speed. Elizabeth grasped the iron armrest with one hand and the brim of her hat with the other. She kept her head down, examining the straw weave that was shielding her eyes, and the rich blue of her skirt that stood up stiffly all around her. She listened to the heady traffic sounds the streetcars, the shouting from the crowds as they turned and went up Lexington Avenue, and tried not to think about what was going through Will’s mind.

  “Why not take Fifth?” Henry called up to Will. “Ladies like that route, you know. That’s where they really get to show their dresses off.”

  Diana snorted, but there was no sound from the driver’s seat.

  “Hey, driver,” Henry said. “Fifth Avenue?”

  “Don’t you read the papers?” Will replied in a voice quiet but intense.

  “Sometimes.” Henry laughed. “But I try not to pay much attention.”

  “Well, if you’d paid attention to the papers this morning, you would know that Fifth is a madhouse because of the preparations for the parade this weekend for the admiral returning from the Philippines. Admiral Dewey? He won the battle in Manila Bay?” Will laughed a sarcastic laugh. “You probably didn’t even know there’s a war on.”

  Elizabeth kept her smile private under her hat as she listened to Henry’s embarrassed reply: “I did. I knew there was a war on. Lexington is fine.”

  It was only once they were in the park that she managed to look up. She lifted the brim slightly with her hand and raised her eyes so that she could see Diana, who was staring petulantly into the distance. She didn’t know what she had been anticipating perhaps that if she dared look at Will, he would immediately begin loud accusations but she saw only the silent rebuke of his back. He was wearing the same worn blue shirt as always, with the sleeves rolled up, and his shoulders were thrown back in defiance. Elizabeth glanced quickly at Henry, whose arrogant face was pointing somewhere off into the leafy wilds of the park. She shifted her gaze back to Will and wished she could know what he was feeling.

  The landau shook mightily as they went up and down the little hills of the park at a speed that caused several of the parasol-wielding ladies walking amongst the elms to turn and look. Elizabeth wished Diana and Henry were gone, just for a moment. She would touch Will’s arm, and he would know to slow down and relax. He would know that she loved him. These were the thoughts in her head, and so she did not at first register what Henry was saying.

  “Miss Diana, I assume you will be standing by your sister at the altar?”

  This caused an immediate wave of discomfort through Elizabeth’s body. The mention of an actual wedding was awful to her. It must have been to Will, too, because he cracked his whip again, which sent the horses dashing up a small stone bridge.

  “No. Apparently, she and Penelope Hayes made a promise to each other as lasses of thirteen,” Diana said crossly. “But I don’t really care for that sort of thing anyway.”

  As the horses hurtled down the bridge and picked up speed, Diana was forced to grab her seat to keep from falling out. She shrieked and moved her other hand from her hat to the railing.

  Henry looked over in Will’s direction angrily. “What is your coachman doing?” he hissed at Elizabeth. “This hardly seems a pace suitable for women.”

  Will clearly heard this comment, for he jerked at the reins and brought the horses swerving off the road and onto the lawn where, after a few breathless moments, they finally came to a halt. The landau jumped when they did stop, and Diana only managed to stop herself from bouncing out of the carriage by catching Henry’s outstretched arm.

  “What the hell, man? She could have been killed,” Henry said, righting Diana and leaping to his feet.

  “I’m fine, really,” Diana replied dryly.

  The rough motion had loosened the ribbon of her hat, however, and at just that moment a breeze picked up and sent it flying off her head and across the lawn. The wind whipped at her hair as well, bringing a heavy gust of curls up and then down around her shoulders.

  “Oh, my hat!” Diana cried, pushing the hair back from her face and pointing in the direction it had blown.

  Elizabeth stood up and saw the hat cartwheeling across the grass. Henry, who just a moment before had seemed ready to fight Will, jumped down from the carriage and went running after it. “Hold on, I’ll get it!” he yelled, taking his own hat off as he dashed away.

  “No, you won’t!” Diana cried, and before Elizabeth could stop her, she had jumped down to the grass. Diana pulled back her skirt and ran after Henry through a field of green dotted with men in straw boaters, picnicking with their wasp-waisted sweethearts. The men and women taking their leisure in the park that day obviously found the sight of a Schoonmaker and a Holland dashing after a runaway hat amusing. Elizabeth didn’t have time to feel embarrassed, however. Will had jumped down from the driver’s seat and was leading the horses back to the road.

  Elizabeth turned and climbed down, being careful not to get caught in the moving wheels, and came around to Will just as he reached the road. When he turned to look at her, she was surprised to see not unspeakable rage, but a calm and determined expression. Then she noticed the great, sloppy bandage wrapped around his hand.

  “What happened?” she asked, reaching for it without thinking.

  Will shook his head and held the hand away from her. He blinked with the sun in his blue eyes. The light brought out a few red glints in his usually dark hair. He seemed to know already what he was going to say.

  “You don’t want that,” he said in a low, controlled voice.

  Elizabeth looked behind her. The weekend crowds didn’t seem to be paying attention, but she’d never spoken to Will this way in public, and it caused her lungs to swell with fright.

  “I’m sorry, Will,” she said with feeling, “I am so sorry that ”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he said, bringing his face closer to hers.

  “But you’ve got to understand, it’s my family, we’re ”

  “I don’t want to hear about your family. I’m leaving, Elizabeth. I’m sure you have your reasons, but if you stay here and marry that man, you will be sorry. I still want you to be my wife, Lizzie, and that can’t happen here. It could happen out West. That’s where I’m going.” He looked down but kept his hand on the strap to lead the horses. After a pause he took in a breath and brought his gaze back to hers. “I want you to come with me.”

  Elizabeth brought her hands to her face. She couldn’t bear to look at Will, whose pale blue eyes were wide with the desire to convince her. An abject misery was constricting her throat and bringing a sting to her eyes, so she kept them hidden. She wasn’t sure quite what would happen to her if she looked right at him, but the feelings of helplessness and sorrow were already overwhelming. So she stood still and blind, in the middle of Central Park, with her palms pressed firmly against her eyes.

  Eighteen

  Don’t go looking for boys in the dark They will say pretty things then leave you with scars. Do go looking for boys in the park For that is where the true gentlemen are.

  — A SEAMSTRESS’S VERSES, 1898

  “WAIT!” DIANA YELLED AS SHE DARTED OVER RED-and-white gingham tablecloths that had been spread on the ground, and nimbly avoided a dumbstruck child not quick enough to get out of her way. Her feet were moving faster than her thoughts, but she was taken by the sudden conviction that nothing was quite so important as Henry not touching her hat. “I don’t need your help!” she shouted after him.

  He slowed at the sound of her voice. The way Henry had spoken to their coachman was still fresh in her mind, and galling Will had been with their family forever, and his rebellious streak had long endeared him to Diana. She was finally gaining on Henry when she heard the shrill, nasal voice of a female bystander saying, “So that’s how the Hollands rea
r their girls these days.”

  She looked back briefly, with a dismissive look, and then continued her chase. By the time she reached Henry, she was panting, and the wind had gotten through her dress. She brought her arms up around herself to keep warm. She took a final few strides to reach his side and said, as coldly as possible, “Thank you, but I don’t need your help.”

  He gave her the rakish smile that she was now fancying herself already immune to. “All right, Miss Diana,” he said. “If you insist, then I won’t help.”

  Diana looked back across the field to where their carriage stood on the path, just beyond the stone bridge. Her sister and Will were out of sight. She turned back to look for her hat, which had landed in the blue-green waters of the pond. The white ribbon that had fastened it to her head was floating away. She sighed impatiently, pulled back her skirts, and took a tentative step toward the muddy edge.

  “Now, Diana…” She turned back to look at Henry. He wasn’t laughing at her or leering, but he was staring at the hem of her dress, already slightly muddied by the water at the pond’s edge. “I wouldn’t want to push on where I’m not wanted…but if you’d prefer that I get that hat…”

  She looked at him, and then at the gaggle of children who had collected several feet behind them. When she turned back around, she saw that her hat was floating farther away. She felt curiously on display out in the middle of the field, and unsure what to do. She looked at Henry, and he raised his eyebrows in gentle amusement. “Would you like me to get it?”

  “Well…” Diana looked at him crossly. “I suppose…”

  Henry smiled at her and put both hands on her hips. The touch of his hands softened her urgency and made her wonder why on earth it had seemed so important that he not retrieve her hat. He stepped on his heels to quickly shuck off his shoes and socks, and then turned and waded in to his knees, his fitted black pants growing wet and sticking to his legs.

  “Aha!” Henry cried, nabbing the hat with a splash. Just then a fleet of ducks came over to examine him, and one of them took the floating white ribbon in its beak. “The ribbon, however…I’m afraid it has a new keeper,” he added, pointing to the brown-and-gray duck swimming away.

  “But how will I tie the hat without the ribbon?” she yelled, crossing her hands over her chest and twisting up her face. “If I get freckles, I don’t know what my mother will do to you.”

  Henry looked at the duck and grimaced. Diana, realizing that he really was considering fighting it for the ribbon, couldn’t help but giggle into her hand. He looked up at her when he heard her laughter.

  “I was joking!” she called.

  He gave the ribbon a concerned parting glance, and then he lifted one knee after the other and brought himself out of the pond. The gathered children broke out in giggles at his bedraggled appearance, and Diana couldn’t help but give him a few hearty claps. She was finding it increasingly difficult to feel taken advantage of by a barefoot man whose expensively tailored trousers were now ruined by mud.

  “Here is your hat,” he said, with a touch of put-on formality. “But it’s sopping, and I would be happy to go on holding it for you. If that’s all right, of course.”

  “Thank you.” She bent her head in a kind of nod.

  They paused at the edge of the pond, the wind whipping at Diana’s rose-brown skirt. He was watching her and she smiled at him, faintly at first and then wider. The moment lasted a few seconds longer than it should have, and then Henry said, “We ought to go back,” ending it.

  “Yes,” Diana said. “I suppose we should.”

  She watched him slip his shoes back on and wished she could think of something more to say to let him know she wasn’t angry anymore. But then he gave her a barely perceptible wink and she knew she didn’t have to.

  Nineteen

  Every family with daughters old enough to marry must be concerned about the costs of a wedding, which, according to tradition, they must shoulder alone. When a girl from high society decides to wed, the costs of course can be astronomical, and many wealthy fathers-of-the-bride have left such happy events feeling like paupers.

  — MRS. HAMILTON W. BREEDFELT, COLLECTED COLUMNS ON RAISING YOUNG LADIES OF CHARACTER, 1899

  ELIZABETH HEARD THE PEALING LAUGHTER OF HER younger sister and opened her eyes. She moved her hands from her face to the shiny, coarse side of the horse. Diana was walking back in their direction with her skirt hiked up, and Henry was a few paces behind her, carrying the wide-brimmed yellow hat. In the distance, the wind was tilting the trees toward the south; everything had a whipped brightness to it. “They’re coming back,” she whispered.

  Will shook his head, very slowly, once left, once right, and fixed his wide, clear eyes on her. “I’m leaving on Friday, last train from Grand Central Station. I’m going to see what the harbor looks like on the other side. You can come with me, or you can stay here forever….”

  Elizabeth wanted to press her body into Will’s; she wanted to put her mouth on his mouth. She wanted to find the words that would make him stay, and say them clearly and forcefully. But she couldn’t. New York was all around her. So she did what she was supposed to do. She ducked around the horse and took several steps forward on the grass, waving her arms above her head.

  “You got it!” she cried, as though the retrieval of the hat were some triumph of her own.

  Diana’s mood seemed to have changed entirely. She looked at Henry and laughed. “Poor Henry practically had to dive into the water to get it!” she called back. “But the ribbon was lost! It’s going to make a duck’s nest somewhere.”

  Elizabeth could feel Will watching her, but still she went on playing the part of Miss Holland. She walked forward, her leather boots sinking into the soft earth, her ears chilled slightly by the breeze. When she reached her fiancé, he took her arm and led her back to the landau. She let him help her up, and then she let the wide brim of her hat fall over her eyes again. The horses began to move, pulling the carriage into motion. Only then did Elizabeth allow a few silent tears to roll down her cheeks under the safe shade of her hat.

  Elizabeth pulled her hat back from her head as she walked through the door of the Hollands’ home. A few strands of hair stuck in the straw weave, but she didn’t have time to fix them. She shoved the loose hair back with her hands as she passed the hat to Claire, who was standing patiently in the low-lit entryway.

  “Where is Mrs. Holland?” Elizabeth stepped forward and peeked into the parlor through the pocket doors. Her movements were frenetic, as though if she slowed down for even a second, her chances of making everything right would disappear entirely. The room was empty of people, though. Apparently, both her mother and aunt had given up on any potential visitors. “Claire, where is my mother?”

  Elizabeth turned to see that Diana had put her arms around Claire and rested her head against her chest. The elder of the Broud sisters had always had that mothering quality about her, even when she was a girl. Claire looked a little embarrassed and offered the elder Holland sister a crooked smile. “I haven’t seen her,” she said quietly.

  “What’s the matter?” Elizabeth said to Diana. “I’m sorry I insisted that you come, if you’re still upset about that.”

  She watched as Diana slowly turned her head. She was wearing a melancholy face that Elizabeth hardly had the time to interpret.

  “No, I’m glad I came,” Diana said. Her voice had grown low and portentous, though Elizabeth couldn’t imagine why. She didn’t really need to know why, either. What she needed was for Diana to disappear, just as she so often did, so that Elizabeth could find their mother.

  “Perhaps you should lie down for a while?” Elizabeth tried to keep her voice even and suggestive.

  “Perhaps.” Diana let go of Claire and moved toward the stairs, her limbs drooping as though she didn’t have enough energy to keep them up properly.

  When she was gone, Elizabeth turned to Claire. She ran a finger along her right eyebrow, took a breath, and pre
pared to ask her question a third time.

  “I don’t know,” Claire said before Elizabeth managed any words. Her eyes were wide. “I haven’t seen her. I’ll go look on the third floor.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth replied. Since talking with Will in the park, her sense of urgency had only grown. All she could think was that the fiction of her relationship with Henry was unsustainable, and that she must tell her mother immediately. If only she could stop this charade, stop playing the perfect miss, then she would be able to show her mother how it had to be. Perhaps their financial state was not in such ruin that she must marry immediately. Perhaps there was some other way, in these modern times, that her family might recover their wealth. Perhaps there was some way she could be with Will.

  Claire took the stairs at a near run, and Elizabeth moved to check the parlor again. That was when she saw the painting in the gold-leaf frame, facing the wall on the foyer floor. She half turned to ask Claire what it was doing there, but the maid was already gone. Elizabeth pulled the painting away from the wall so she could see which one it was. She recognized it immediately it was the Vermeer that had hung in her bedroom for nearly ten years.

  The painting had been one of her father’s favorites he had bought it from a Paris art dealer while Mrs. Holland was pregnant for the first time. Several of the big art collectors, the ones who had traded making millions off steel to spending it on old master works, had expressed interest in the little piece, but Elizabeth had begged him not to sell it. It depicted two girls, one fair-haired and one dark, reading a book at a wooden table by a window. The blonde was on the left side, closer to the window, and her hair glittered like spun gold. They were turning the pages of the book, and the light illuminated the pale perfection of their skin.

  Elizabeth ran her hand along the gold frame, where a piece of paper was affixed to the corner. The name she saw Mr. Broussard was not a familiar one. Even though the painting was hers, she felt like she’d been rummaging in someone else’s things.