Envy

by Anna Godbersen

  —FROM CITÉ CHATTER, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1900

  THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR LOOKED PALE AND PUFFY, but Elizabeth tried to take a few deep breaths and regain some of the good feelings that she had experienced yesterday. She would have liked to find Teddy and go to breakfast with him, but after his almost-proposal of the night before, she knew she had better stay away. The warm air should still have been doing her good, as should the change of scenery. But there was a rough current inside of her and a sour streak of bile down her throat, and though she wanted very badly to feel contained and in control before leaving the bathroom of her hotel room, another part of her believed she deserved to feel terrible, and anyway she was on the verge of heaving all over again. She wavered there in the white-tiled room; she pinned back a few loose blond wisps and closed her eyes. When she opened them again there was only the same sad, heart-shaped face and a whole day of sun worship that she hardly had the energy for.

  She stepped down into the main space of the little room, and was immediately aware of a hostile presence there. Penelope looked up from the scroll-edged settee, with its polished dark wood and white cushion, and gave her old friend a hard look. A moment later her red lips sprang into a smile. She looked oversized, too large for the room, which the Schoonmakers had reserved for them and paid for and which was far, far smaller than their own suite. That much was obvious from Penelope’s lengthy and loving descriptions of the rooms that she and Henry occupied; she belonged there now, Elizabeth thought, not in the narrow second-floor quarters where the Holland sisters slept.

  “Good morning, dear Liz,” Penelope said brightly.

  Elizabeth’s gaze shifted to Diana, who had returned from the party after she herself had fallen asleep, and who was now safely ensconced under a pile of white bed linens on one of the two twin beds with the yellow silk upholstered head-boards. She had tossed restlessly in the sheets throughout the night, but had not yet given any sign of waking. The mosquito netting was only partially down and her lavender dress, which had been lying on the floor an hour ago, was now hanging in the closet. Elizabeth had put it there after vomiting for the first time that morning; afterward she had carefully made up her own bed.

  “Good morning.” She closed her eyes in an attempt to weather the storm of nausea that was coming over her. “How did you sleep?”

  “Oh, well enough. What are you doing today? Would you like to go horseback riding with me?” After these staccato statements, Penelope rolled her eyes and let out a sigh that might have pierced steel. “I’m bored of this place already,” she added hatefully.

  “Bored already?” Elizabeth was biding her time, repeating what Penelope said in the hope that it would distract her friend long enough that she could form a coherent and polite rejection.

  “Everyone is so simpleminded down here, and there is so little to do. It’s like being an animal in a zoo, with enforced feeding hours and the constant indignity of display. They’re all looking at me—us—all the time. We should never have left New York. But as long as we’re here, we could get some exercise.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Oh, come on, Liz. You’re my oldest friend.” Penelope leaned forward, sinking her elbows into the voluminous burgundy skirt she wore. “My best friend. Entertain me, please.”

  Elizabeth regarded Penelope, who was very neatly done up in white chiffon sleeves, her lap covered in silk the color of crushed rose petals, with a black sash marking the narrow isthmus of her waist. Her hair was layered above her forehead, shiny and dark, like a crown. What trouble did that immaculate veneer obscure, Elizabeth wondered, before she nodded her acquiescence. She was too weak to be contrary with her hostess.

  “Oh, goody!” Penelope exclaimed as she stood and clapped her hands. “But you’re not going to wear that, are you?”

  “No, I—” Elizabeth had to put her hand against the wall to support herself. Her slender form was racked again. She placed her other hand on the plain white cotton bodice of her dress and closed her eyes. She was about to tell Penelope that she needed just a few minutes, but then she realized that she wasn’t going to make it that long. She spun and hurried to the bathroom on weak legs. Her knees hit the floor and she gripped the wall as she heaved. The contents of her stomach were few, and what came up came quickly.

  “Are you all right?”

  Elizabeth turned to see Penelope’s narrow figure in the doorframe.

  “My God,” Penelope added unhelpfully.

  Elizabeth drew her hand across her mouth and tried to look dignified. “Yes, I will be in a minute. I just…took the traveling poorly, is all. There was the motion sickness and now…”

  She trailed off, remaining for the moment in a heap on the floor. She would have stood with greater pride and readiness if she thought she could have managed it, but her legs were useless beneath her. Then her old friend extended a hand to help her up. It was an unlikely gesture, and Elizabeth didn’t know what else to do but accept it.

  When she was on her feet again, Penelope stepped away and crossed her arms over her chest. She studied the other girl without animosity or coldness, but with a notable lack of compassion. “I don’t think that’s motion sickness that you’ve got,” she said eventually.

  “What ever do you mean?” Elizabeth—finally, thankfully—was able to summon the old smile. She was feeling a little steady now, and she parted her lips to show Penelope just a little bit of teeth. They were standing very close to each other on those small, hexagonal tiles, and she knew that Mrs. Schoonmaker was taking in every detail of her appearance.

  “Well,” Penelope answered airily, “you can call it whatever you like. But if you want my opinion—and you really ought to—I’d say you’re expecting.”

  A soft wind blew in through the little window, tickling the nape of Elizabeth’s neck. Fear began to grip her like vines, starting at her toes and climbing up through her whole body. “That isn’t possible,” she whispered hoarsely.

  One of Penelope’s neatly shaped eyebrows elevated itself. She held Elizabeth’s gaze and then shrugged, before turning away and leaving the bathroom. “Maybe horseback riding isn’t the best idea just now. Let’s play croquet instead, shall we?”

  Back in the bedroom, Diana began to stir under the blankets, and when she’d successfully pushed the curls off of her sleepy face she looked aghast at the visitor in their room. Elizabeth was by then possessed by the idea that she show Penelope how very normal everything was, how very wrong she had been about the illness, and so she smiled reassuringly at her younger sister. “Mrs. Schoonmaker and I are going to play croquet,” she said, as though this were the most normal thing in the world. Then she took a glass of water from the tray by the door, and gulped.

  Already the door was open, and she could hear the sounds of breakfast being delivered out in the hall. “Oh,” Diana said before rolling back under the covers. If Elizabeth had not felt so wretched herself, she might have noticed how deathly her little sister’s appearance was. “Please be careful.”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth smiled a lofty smile and thought to herself, That’s precisely what I’m doing. She could feel her control again, retuning to her with every passing second, giving her just a little extra height and glow. She was going to need every ounce of it to keep Penelope from growing sure of what she already seemed to believe.

  The two girls stepped onto the croquet field, affecting their old closeness and confidence, and they spoke with great exactitude over many small and petty things. The blonde smiled, and the brunette smiled back, and they held their hats elegantly when the breeze picked up and tilted the landscape away from the sea, rearranging their skirts. Elizabeth made sure to play a good game, but not to win, and when they were through she insisted on a rematch with a certain ladylike gusto. All the while she held her shoulders high and casually, though she could not stop herself from once or twice resting her hand on her belly and wondering what she carried there.

  Twenty Nine

 
DIED, Longhorn, Carey Lewis, Saturday evening after a short illness. The last of a great family and a notable man about town. He left no survivors, but a great fortune. Services will be held today at his residence in the New Netherland Hotel. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Society for Young Girls Orphaned by Fire.

  —FROM THE OBITUARY PAGE OF THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1900

  THE VIEW FROM THE NEW NETHERLAND WAS stark and entirely lacking in reassurance. Carolina remembered spending many evenings looking out at that huge swath of park, with its wealth of trees, imagining that it was the backyard of her benefactor, and therefore very nearly hers. When she’d closed her eyes, she had believed that if she fell back into it, it would catch her gently, the way a featherbed might. The truth of the matter was as unadorned as all those bare branches down there, as simple as the ice gray sky. None of it belonged to her, and whether or not it had ever belonged to Mr. Longhorn didn’t matter now. He was gone and he couldn’t help her anymore. With that in mind, she turned from the window.

  “Miss…Broad.” The second syllable was pronounced with great skepticism, the way an anarchist might have used the phrase “Newport cottage” when referring to those sixty-four-room mansions that faced the Rhode Island shoreline. Carolina blinked furiously. Mr. James wore thick muttonchops and large black lapels and was shaped like a pear. He had a manner that might have unnerved generals; it certainly unnerved her.

  “Yes?”

  “A word about the jewels.”

  Over his massive shoulder, she could see the last mourners taking leave. Robert stood—sadly, but also warily—by the table of cold cuts and pickles, which had lain out for several hours now and just barely been picked at. There had been few visitors, most of them women who had once upon a time hoped for the crown of Mrs. Longhorn, and this only increased Carolina’s suffering. For he had asked her so plaintively to stay with him, and she had shaken him off and left him to die alone.

  “The jewels, Miss Broad?”

  Carolina batted the moisture away from her eyes and tried to look wounded. She felt wounded, but still there was this urgency to put on a face that could be clearly read as dolorous. “What jewels?”

  Mr. James waved a stack of receipts at her. “Seems Longhorn purchased a lot of jewels over the last six months of his life.” His eyes widened threateningly. “Those belong to the estate.”

  “Mr. Longhorn purchased a lot of jewels over his lifetime,” Carolina snapped back. She was experiencing a tingle of dread, but still her voice was hard. “You can’t hold me accountable for all of them, and anyway, the ones he bought with me in mind were gifts.”

  “They were on loan to you,” Mr. James returned firmly. He waved the receipts. Across the room, blue afternoon light played against the finials and crests of antique furniture and washed out the gold threads in the upholstery. “We own them.”

  “I wonder how you’ll get them, since he gave them to me.” There was nothing Carolina could do about the insolent look on her face. The anger had come back, the way it always did when she knew something was going to be unjustly taken from her and that there was nothing she could do to stop it. It had not served her well as a child or as a lady’s maid, and it was unlikely to serve her well now, but it was a reflex she could hardly control. “Or perhaps you’re planning on dragging every woman Longhorn ever took a grandfatherly interest in into court.”

  “I highly doubt you want to go to court, my dear.” Mr. James’s lips were full and moist, and though her ire was strong as ever she found she had to look away from him. “And my people are over in your rooms now, packing your things. They’ll put what you need in some of the bags nobody has any use for. The jewels we will be taking custody of—your maid told us where they would be.”

  The volume of her black skirt, with its tiered ruffles below the knee, made her instinctual response to this undetectable: She stamped her foot—twice, silently—against the polished wood floor. All the guests were gone now, and across the room men from Mr. James’s office were moving to wrap up what finery remained and cart it off. Soon all the parties, the whole life Mr. Longhorn lived there, would be scrubbed away. She saw clearly what she had half-consciously feared during her train journey: This game was over. She saw, too, why Mr. James had been so conscientious in seeing her to the graveyard; so that he could have his staff go through her things while she watched, through a black net veil, Mr. Longhorn being lowered into the ground.

  “I don’t think this is how he would have wanted it,” she said quietly. It was the truth, though she knew very well that it mattered not at all to the gentleman lawyer.

  “Well, if you like, you may come hear the will being read next week. Maybe there will be some special compensation for you. But if you ask me—and I am usually paid quite handsomely for advice of this kind—I’d say you’ve gotten away with quite enough already.”

  Carolina left the New Netherland carrying far fewer possessions than she’d arrived with and badly in need of some company. Neither Penelope nor Leland would do, and not only because both were still in Florida. The former was pledged to help her, but she was still not exactly the kind of friend you wanted to show your weaknesses to; and the latter could never know how dependent on Longhorn she had been—she wouldn’t allow that. He knew of course that the old man had looked after her, but she had explained that this was because Longhorn and her father had been great friends, and that she lived off her own inherited income. As she left the hotel and watched her two beaten black trunks loaded into a hansom cab, she couldn’t help but think of the one person in New York who knew perfectly well what she was.

  She gave the driver a downtown address and refused to look out the window as they passed out of the charmed avenues and into the dingy old world. Outside it was all hum-drum skyline, a gaggle of disappointing faces, a barrage of bold advertisements trying to convince everyday New Yorkers that their lives really would be different if they bought some cheap hair product or other that she now knew to be beneath her. There was no answer when she rang the bell on that faraway street, which she had visited only once before, and so she paid the driver a little extra out of her dwindling cash, and sat waiting in the seat with her black silk ladies’ top hat tipped forward over her profile.

  They had taken many of her gowns away and most of the jewels, although there were a few items that fit her so perfectly that even sour Mr. James saw no point in stealing them. She still had her pride and her name, she told herself as she bent forward over the hard seat—however serendipitously come by, it was hers now. But even that small gift seemed to diminish as she waited and waited on the cobblestone street. The driver was growing impatient, she knew, and she wondered if maybe it wasn’t time to move on, when the face appeared in the glass.

  “Miss Carolina Broad!” he said, as though there were no one he would rather have happened upon. Her face turned hopelessly to sunshine. She couldn’t wait, as she knew a real lady would, for the driver to come around and open the door for her. Already her gloved fingers were pressing down on the handle and she was spilling out onto the street.

  “Tristan!” she cried as she threw her arms around his neck. “And to what do I owe this honor?” he asked, as he pried her away just enough to get a look at her.

  “Oh, Tristan, it’s the most terrible…” she began. Now that she was with someone who’d always looked at her with such gilded intention and given so freely of his advice, she believed she might be able to let her guard down. Even though the air was still biting—Tristan’s neck was protected by a thick, brown scarf—she began to feel a little warm. She wanted to show him all the sadness and anxiety and indignity of the day, and was grateful to him for even small things, like the fact that he knew her name.

  “Will you come up for some tea?” he interrupted, after a good deal of babbling on her part.

  Carolina let her sage-colored eyes roll ashamedly to the ground. “I have a few bags…” she said in a more tentative tone than befor
e. The last time she’d been without a home, she had felt stupid and cloddy. She was only a little surprised that this time she was able to wear her distress like loveliness, and she imagined that she must be as delicate and fine as some rose petal veined with color that has just been picked off by the breeze.

  Tristan’s body was lean and strong, and he moved with assurance and purpose. She couldn’t help but take a little pleasure in the fact that he was now instructing the driver to help him with her bags, and leading them up the narrow wood floors to the small flat he kept. It seemed neater and more welcoming this time, and when she felt the strong blast of the radiator she realized how cold she had been.

  Tristan tipped the driver and gave Carolina a devilish smile as he took her coat from her. She had meant to mention, somewhere in all this, that she had met Leland Bouchard and was in love with him. But she hadn’t done so by the time he put on the water and poured her a spot of brandy to warm her up. Then it felt too late, and anyway, the natural thing to do when he turned and gave her well-fitting black silk dress an appreciative look was to lean forward, put her hand into his wayward blond hair, and press her lips against his.

  Thirty

  My Di—

  I am thinking of you always,

  and when we’ll be together.

  How soon that will be.

  But in the meantime, keep your

  wits about you, and act like

  everything is normal.

  Love,

  H

  THE WATER WAS FINE, THOUGH DIANA WASN’T, AND she swam out without looking back. The women in hats and stockings clinging to the rope that extended out to sea took no notice of her, and went on shrieking as though the ocean contained some perpetual surprise. For Diana, there were no surprises—the ocean went up and down, it carried you in and out. She felt soothed, a little, by the repetitious rocking, although she had an almost inexhaustible need for solace just then, which no act of nature could fulfill. Three days had passed since she had seen Henry on the balcony with his wife, and she had kept quiet since then, and thrown all of Henry’s notes into the waves. It had been an awful thing to lose Henry the first time, to matrimony, but to discover what a false front he was capable of was another kind of blow, and it had left her almost speechless. Then there was the fury with herself—for she had known what Henry’s love was, and still she had gone back to suffer a little more at his hands.