“Good afternoon, Miss ” he began, but stopped himself suddenly. He looked from her dress to her feet and then to her face. Lina, who a moment before had been so full of excitement, was suddenly overwhelmed by self-consciousness.
“Are you a guest of the hotel?” “No,” Lina admitted a little sadly. “I’m staying in the West Side Inn, on Twenty-sixth Street….” She trailed off when she noticed that the man was again looking at her feet. She looked down her dress was still pulled up the way she had carried it to cross the street, and so her old scuffed boots were completely on display. The clerk made a motion to one of the other clerks, who was wearing the same burgundy uniform, and then the second man approached.
She looked around her and realized that the other ladies strolling through the lobby were accompanied by chaperones or their own servants. She wondered at herself for thinking she could pass, so easily and so soon, for a society girl. The first clerk was looking at her and whispering to the second, who shot another distasteful look at her shoes.
“Excuse me,” the second clerk said. “Are you meeting someone here?”
“No,” she replied miserably.
“Then we are going to have to ask you to leave,” the first said, adding a sneer that was entirely unnecessary, as he had already made Lina feel her place quite acutely.
If she could have made herself disappear forever right then, she would have done it, just to be out of the glare of those two clerks’ dismissive faces. Lina backed toward the door and the red dress rustled around her legs as she ran into the street. She was going to follow Broadway, where it crossed Fifth, carving out a triangle-shaped block. To take Fifth would only be to remind herself how foolish she had been. She was moving so quickly she could hardly see, and so the man’s chest was doubly shocking when she smacked into it.
“Pardon me, miss.”
Lina recognized the man she had collided with immediately, but it took her a moment to believe that he was actually speaking to her in so polite a tone. It was the Lord & Taylor boy, the one whom Claire had called handsome the other day. The one who was hired to sweet-talk ladies. As she had just been so painfully reminded, she was not a lady at all.
“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly. He was wearing a light beige collared shirt under a brown silk vest, and his jacket was thrown across his arm. He was better-looking than Lina had thought before, which didn’t help the matter of her not having anything to say in the least. Instead she stared stupidly into his hazel eyes. “You probably think it’s rude of me to speak to you this way. But you look very familiar. Maybe I’ve had the pleasure of serving you at Lord and Taylor’s department store?”
Lina’s smile was instantaneous. There was at least one person in the world who didn’t take her for a lowly servant.
“Or maybe I’ve seen your portrait in the papers?” The Lord & Taylor boy was smiling now, too. He had a long nose and an almost downy layer of hair on his chin, and he was much taller than Lina. “Maybe a mention of you attending a ball?”
She shrugged evasively. After being turned away from the hotel, she felt she had to be very cautious not to misstep. But she couldn’t end the moment. Being taken for a lady, and by someone so gracious and handsome, felt too nice to just turn away from.
“Well, you can’t be all alone? Are your parents still at the hotel?”
Lina looked back at the white marble building and was glad to see neither of the two clerks who had so recently shunned her. “Oh…no. I’m staying here by myself.”
“You look so familiar…” he said again, turning his head to look at her sideways.
Lina couldn’t help but continue to smile her wide, happy smile. “I’m a mystery, I guess.”
“Well, would you mind if I thought about it a little more? Over a drink maybe?”
Lina felt herself blushing and wished she could stop.
“Oh, I know it must seem improper, but you wouldn’t be the first society girl I’ve shown other parts of town. And I promise to have you back in one piece.”
“It’s not that,” Lina said, feeling uncomfortable again and at a very great risk of revealing her real identity. “It’s that I’m spoken for already,” she explained, remembering Will and how this transformation was all for him. Or perhaps not all for him, but certainly most of it.
“Oh, that’s all right.” He smiled rakishly. “It’s only for an afternoon, and I promise not to tell anyone about it.”
Lina thought of Will again, and wished that he were there courting her instead. But she also wanted this gorgeous moment of being mistaken for a fancy society girl to last a little bit longer.
Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw a floor covered by sawdust and walls plastered with newspaper. Barmaids younger than she traversed the floor, going from table to table with mugs of beer. There was a fat female vocalist in the corner singing “Old Folks at Home,” which was familiar to Lina from the warblings of her sister. Although it was still afternoon outside, the scene inside the saloon made her feel like she’d stepped into the middle of the night.
“Pretty different from Fifth Avenue, isn’t it?” her Lord & Taylor boy asked.
Lina nodded, although she was suddenly worried that she had made a mistake. She had become aware of the fact that she hadn’t eaten all day, and was feeling a little light-headed. More important, all the money that Penelope had given her was tucked into the silk purse under her arm, and here she was perched on a bar stool in the Bowery, which was famous for its groggeries, pawnbrokers, brothels, and dangerous characters. “What did you say your name was?”
“Tristan Wrigley.” His light-colored hair grew back a little wild from his head, and when he smiled at her it was with an energy that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “And yours?”
“Carolina Broud,” she answered. She liked the way her full name sounded aloud, and smiled to herself. She only wished she had thought to expand her surname as well, so that she could claim to be Carolina Broudhurst, or Carolina Broudwell.
“You’ll forgive me if I keep staring at you.” Tristan motioned to the barkeep, and before long two mugs of dark beer appeared before them, with froth spilling over their rims and onto the unfinished wood of the bar. “It’s just that I’m sure we’ve met before, but I don’t recall the name Carolina Broud….”
“Well, I haven’t been out so very long.” She took a gulp of the beer and wasn’t sure if she liked it. She had never had beer only occasional sips of Will’s whiskey and it tasted like something gone bad. But she remembered one of the kitchen girls telling her that when there was no food to be had, a stout and a smoke was almost as good. So she took another pull and said, “I must look like a lot of girls.”
“Not a bit.” He gave her the smile again it wasn’t like any smile Lina had been the recipient of. It gave her a warm, pleasant feeling, and also a little stab of guilt. “You’re a mighty pretty girl, Miss Broud.”
“Don’t get any ideas, Mr. Wrigley,” she warned him. “I told you I’m spoken for. He’s seeking his fortune out West, but that doesn’t mean that ”
“Oh, I get it,” Tristan replied lightly. He winked at her, and she thought she saw something almost Will-like in his eyes. “Your fellow doesn’t have enough money to make your folks happy, so he’s gone out to make some pennies and then win your hand with them.”
Lina was flattered by the little story he had just told her, and wished it were true. She blushed, and he seemed to take this as his cue to change the subject.
“So, I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before.” Tristan turned on his stool and surveyed the long room, with its low tin ceiling. “See over there, the fellow in the plug hat?”
Lina followed his gaze and saw a medium-size man with a mashed nose and close-set eyes. He was sitting at a table, surrounded by women who struck Lina as almost as well dressed as she. “The ugly one?”
Tristan snorted. “That’s Kid Jack
Gallagher. Killed a man in a bare-knuckled match only two weeks ago. It was a long fight, and his opponent was unbeaten. Well, before that, of course.”
“If he’s a murderer, why are all the pretty ladies fawning over him?” Lina looked at the women fluttering around him.
“Those aren’t pretty ladies. Those are whores. And they’re fawning because he has prize money to burn.”
“Oh.”
Lina watched as Tristan lifted his mug and threw his head back. Slowly, all the beer disappeared from the glass. He looked at Lina with half-wild eyes. “You want to try that?”
Lina smiled. She’d always liked a challenge. She threw her head back and drained the beer in several chugs. She was sputtering when she came back up, but the beer was gone.
Tristan motioned again to the bartender. “Have another,” he said when they arrived.
“All right, then,” Lina replied, looking down into her second beer. She was beginning to feel very light-headed indeed, but she was finding Tristan’s impression of her as a society girl gone bad to be completely irresistible. And anyway, she couldn’t go home to be by herself just yet. Not to that room on Twenty-sixth Street with the ancient wallpaper and the air-shaft view. “If you insist.”
As the hours passed she made up little stories about herself, although she was careful to keep them vague and minimal, and he listened in rapt attention. Three more beers came and went, and then she found herself drooping forward off her stool.
“Hey,” Tristan said gently, as he pushed her upright.
“Careful.”
“Thank you.” She giggled and burped into her hand, and then gave the man next to her a grateful, sloppy smile.
“You know, Christian,” she said. She squinted her eyes at him and wondered if that name sounded a little wrong. “I like you. Not as much as my Will I could never love anybody but him but I’ve enjoyed talking with you.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “I think I’ve finally figured out who you are. You’re friends with Adelaide Wetmore, and you came in with her to look at brooches two weeks ago.”
She giggled and shook her head.
“One of Commodore Vanderbilt’s granddaughters, perhaps?”
Lina raised her eyebrows at this suggestion, and then had to shake her head no again.
“Then perhaps I recognize you because you’re in the Schoonmaker-Holland wedding party?” Lina felt her smile disappear from her face. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re one of Elizabeth Holland’s friends?”
“The Hollands,” she said hatefully. “They’re awful. Especially Elizabeth.”
“Really? She always seemed so well mannered when I saw her in the store.”
Lina nodded disgustedly. She reminded herself that if it weren’t for Elizabeth sneaking around and tricking Will into falling in love with her, he’d be in love with Lina right now instead. “That’s the way she seems in public. But everyone who knows her knows that she’s nasty as can be.” Lina paused and decided that she was rambling unwisely. Then she remembered how the very man she was sitting next to had demanded payment of her former employers. “I’m far richer than they are now anyway.”
“Really?” Tristan said, lowering his mug slowly to the bar. “The Hollands are such an old family, though.”
“Oh yes,” Lina said proudly. She knew that she was going on really foolishly, but she couldn’t help herself. “I could buy and sell them.”
“Oh, really,” Tristan said lightly. “And what would you do with them when they belonged to you?”
“I would make them scrub my floor and mend my stockings, and then I’d send them out to find me lilies in a very particular shade.” Lina couldn’t stop herself. She was enjoying this fantasy too much.
“Sounds like an awful lot of work for Holland girls.” Tristan’s eyes were full of mischief.
“Oh, you’ve never met them. Awful family. Real princesses. Elizabeth especially.” Lina paused to slurp her beer. “I wish she’d never lived.”
“I could make that happen.” Tristan leaned forward confidentially. “I know you look at me, in my tailored suit and my fine way of talking, and think I’m probably out of my element with the Kid Jack Gallaghers here. But if you want a little problem like Elizabeth Holland gone…” He trailed off, raising a blond eyebrow.
Lina dropped her mug to the bar heavily. She was suddenly discomfited by this bend in the conversation. But then she looked at Tristan serious now but so light before and realized he must be joking.
She put her hands over her face and giggled. She felt terrible laughing at a thing like that, but there was something funny about the idea of Elizabeth being done away with by one of the men who used to deliver her dresses. And anyway, it was just an elaborate story. “It would serve her right,” she added when her giggles had quieted down.
“Cheers to that, Carolina.” Tristan raised his eyebrows and clinked his mug against hers.
Pretty soon everything began to feel warm and fuzzy; the faces in the room grew long and distorted, the warblings of the vocalist grew louder, and clinking glasses with Tristan Wrigley was the last thing Lina could recall.
Thirty Six
My dear Lizzie,
At this stage of life, I’ve begun to worry what will happen to you when I am gone. Remember always to be true as true and honest as the girl I know.
With love,
our Father
ELIZABETH WOKE EARLY ON TUESDAY AND COULD not fall back to sleep, although she was grateful to have slept at all. The night had been restless and full of ghosts. She didn’t have the energy to choose a new outfit, so she put on the same dress she had worn the day before, the eyelet with the square neck and ruffles on the three-quarter-length sleeves. When she had finished dressing herself it was still well before breakfast, which she had little interest in anyway, so she went up to the morning room on the third floor. It was the room where the Holland women wrote their letters and stored their correspondence.
The most striking thing about the room, when she entered on that particular morning, was the heap of bridal fabrics from Lord & Taylor, which must have been delivered the previous afternoon. The room was simpler than the rest of the house, with wide dark floorboards and a plain metal frame for the fireplace. The wallpaper was an earthy brown with a velvet leaf pattern over it. The yards of silk muslin and point de gaze caught all the light and seemed almost to glow from the worktable in the center of the room. There was a note from Mr. Carroll, asking her to approve the fabric and informing her that his assistant would be by in the afternoon to pick it up and take it to his shop on Twenty-eighth Street. She didn’t have a mind for that, however; what she wanted, more than anything, was to talk to her father.
The letters Edward Holland had sent to his oldest child were kept in several of the small drawers in the great mahogany cabinet. She had received crisp white envelopes embellished with the stamps of Japan and South Africa and Alaska, and she kept them all in dated order, each month’s tied together with light blue ribbon. They were full of his quiet observations of foreign peoples and his carefully espoused principles of personal dignity. Her father had traveled a great deal, ostensibly on business, although really he had just wanted to see the world.
Elizabeth opened one of the cabinet drawers and pulled out a stack of letters. Even before he had passed, Elizabeth used to come here sometimes and pick a letter at random, looking for advice or wisdom. She needed that more than ever now, so she closed her eyes and ran the tip of her soft finger along the neatly opened edges of the stiff white envelopes. When she settled on one, she opened her eyes and saw her father’s long, slanting script. She pulled open the envelope, and reread the little note, which must have accompanied some gift or other.
“Remember always to be true,” she read his words in a whisper. “As true and honest as the girl I know.”
A creeping shame set in around her chest bone. So this, she knew instantly, was what her father would have said if he were here. She closed her eyes,
and thought how little the words true and honest applied to her now. But perhaps she still had time to change all that.
Elizabeth turned and marched across the hall to the room that once was her father’s study, letter in hand. It was now the room where her mother went every morning, to look over their mounting bills and go through the papers as though she would somehow find a way to make them rich again. Elizabeth leaned her face against the door and knocked.
There was no answer. Elizabeth waited a moment and entered on timid feet. She saw her mother, a figure in black, behind the big oak desk with the burgundy leather top that her father once used. Her mother’s hair, which was always pinned in a dozen places, if not also covered with a hat, was completely loose. It was the same chestnut color as Diana’s, except streaked with white, and it streamed down her shoulders. She glanced up from her letter briefly and wished her daughter a good morning.
“Mother,” Elizabeth said as she tiptoed into the room.
“I’ve got to talk to you about this wedding.”
Her mother nodded for her to continue, but she kept her eyes on the letter in her hands.
“I have been thinking about what Father had wanted for us, about how he lived his life, and how he expected us to live ours. I was reading through his letters this morning, and I came across one in which he urged me to stay true and honest. And when I think about it, marrying Henry Schoonmaker would make me neither of those things.” Elizabeth waited for her mother to say something, but she barely even moved. “I think Father would have wanted me to marry for love,” she went on, in a shaky voice. “And though I am deeply flattered by Mr. Schoonmaker’s interest in me, and while I am very sensitive to his position in the world, I know I do not love him at all. I don’t think I will come to love him either.”
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