Splendor l-4

by Anna Godbersen

  “It’s late, it’s late—I know that.” The accent, Elizabeth realized, was not what one usually found in drawing rooms like hers. “That’s how I was sure you’d be here.”

  Elizabeth, in the shadow of the stairs, knew she should announce herself. She glanced down at the glass on the tray, its contents sloshing silently back and forth, and didn’t budge.

  “Make it quick, then — what do you want? Though one would think I’ve given you enough already, seeing how you’ve bled me all these months.”

  “Ah, but that was for services rendered, and now there is something new, a little story I’ve discovered about you that I think you’d rather not have told. In fact I think we’d both sleep better having experienced that reassuring feeling of money changing hands.”

  “Hurry up then. This is my family’s home,” Snowden said.

  The other man made a noise like a laugh, but it was the most horrible, sneering thing Elizabeth had ever heard. “Family,” the man repeated, and then she realized that the noise had been in reference to her, her child, their arrangement here. She felt nauseous.

  “It’s about what you did in the Klondike—”

  So this late-night visitor was the man who’d written the note. A shudder traveled hard across Elizabeth’s body, from left to right, and though the summer heat was as stifling as ever she felt for a moment as though she’d been standing out in a winter gale for several hours. But the feeling was not just within her; her hands shook, and in another moment her tray, and the full glass upon it, capsized. She grasped for them helplessly, but this only caused their trajectory to be more violent, and when they hit the floor the glass shattered loudly and the sickeningly sweet smell of the brandy filled her nostrils.

  She looked down at the mess, her mouth forming a small, tremulous circle. In the next moment, her husband appeared on the other side of the pocket door. Behind him was the man with that large, boyish face that had been so marred by pockmarks. When he met Elizabeth’s eyes, he appeared as surprised to be confronted by her as she by him, and after that she was sure they’d encountered one another before. He should be wearing a uniform, she thought to herself, as she began apologizing for the noise and bent to pick up the large shards of glass at her feet.

  “Come visit me tomorrow, when you will not be such a disturbance to my wife, and we will agree on an arrangement then,” she heard Snowden say, followed shortly by the sound of men’s shoes moving toward the door, and then the click of the lock being turned.

  The man was gone quickly, but the sight of him had caused her such a fright that she could not get her fingers to stop shaking. She tried to pick up the shards with both hands, but it didn’t help the shaking, and in the next moment she realized that she had cut herself and drops of blood were falling from her palm onto her white cotton dressing gown.

  “Are you all right?” Snowden was looming over her now.

  “No…” She was not in the least all right. The phrases “services rendered” and “what you did in the Klondike” and “money changing hands” were all ringing in her ears. “I–I know that man.”

  “That isn’t possible,” he replied curtly.

  “Yes, no, of course…I don’t mean that I’m acquainted with him. But I’ve seen him before. He’s a policeman, and he was one of the men who—” The nausea was wracking her body now, and she slumped against the wll. “One of the policemen who killed my husband.”

  “I am your husband.”

  “Will.” She was having trouble getting the words out. The horror and fear were as fresh for her as though she were still standing on the platform in Grand Central, under the great glass train shed, the sound of bullets ringing in her ears and the smell of fresh blood spilling from her husband’s body. When the smoke had cleared, the policemen came forward and swept her up — that man, with his pockmarked face, he had been among them. “He was one of the men who killed Will.”

  Snowden reached down and pulled her up to her feet. All of her was limp, and once upright, she had to be supported. “You are overtired, my dear; you are under too much stress—”

  “No! I know that face. I have seen that face in nightmares. I have relived those moments so many countless times.” Her voice was growing shrill, and she had to hang onto Snowden’s shoulder for support. “But what was he doing here? What does he want with you? Oh…God.” Her voice fell to a tragic growl as she realized just what kind of service the man had done for Snowden. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.”

  “You hallucinate, my love.”

  Now she pulled away from Snowden instinctively, as though from something vile. “He killed Will, because you told him to,” she whispered. She had to put her hand out for the wall again, as she backed away from her husband. “That’s why you were paying him. You paid him to kill Will so that you could marry me. So that you would own the land in California, so that you would own all that oil we’re living on now.”

  There was an unnerving calm in Snowden’s still, watchful pose. He was listening to her, but he was no longer trying to convince her of anything. His light hair was like a beacon in the dark hallway, and she could not make out his eyes.

  “But what about the Klondike? Why did he want to see you about the Klondike? What could possibly have happened in the Klondike?” The bile was rising in her throat, and she had to reach up and cover her mouth with her hands. For only one thing had ever happened in that part of the world that Elizabeth cared about, and that was that her father had died. She knew, without quite understanding how, that Snowden was responsible for that, too. She kept stepping backward, one hand against the wall for support, piecing it together out loud as she moved. “That money you gave my mother last fall, you had stolen it, hadn’t you? You weren’t going to give us father’s share. You killed him for it, and would have kept it all, if you hadn’t realized there was more money to be made by keeping up relations with his widow and daughters. By marrying into the family.” She brought her hands up to cover her eyes as she let out a moan. “Oh, God.”

  In the next moment Snowden had moved in close to her and ripped her hands away from her face. The light from the moon, shining through the window over the fanlight, now illuminated his eyes, and she saw in them the plain, forceful avariciousness which had led him to prey on her and those she loved best.

  “You are overtired, my dear,” he repeated, all persuasion gone from his voice. Now he was telling her how it would be. “Your condition is not good, you are unwell, and it can be so dangerous, carrying a child. How many young women die trying to bring their precious babies into the world? I think we had better put you to bed and keep you there, as long as possible.”

  Elizabeth tried to move away from him, but he was holding tight to her hands. What the man she had been living with for so many months was capable of was finally beginning to dawn on her, and the sick feeling faded as the panic set in. Those unremarkable, blocklike features had, in a matter of minutes, come to hold impossible menace for her, and though she told herself that she should cry out, the fear spreading through her was so great, it seized her throat. The last thing she knew, before the faintness overcame her and she lost first vision and then consciousness, was that he had roughly scooped her into his arms and was carrying her up the stairs.

  Twenty Five

  The Cunard Line steamship Campania sailing New York Southampton Le Havre departs at noon from Pier 54, with many notable passengers on board, including Grace Vanderbilt en route to Monte Carlo, and the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough returning to their ancestral home.

  — FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE, TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1900

  ON TUESDAY THE HEAT BROKE, AND FOR DIANA ALL OF New York had that dazzling quality of any place one has decided to give up and has already begun to appear softened by nostalgia. The leaves blanketing the little park were as thick and green as they had ever been.

  “The Schoonmakers have always been lovers,” Edith said in a quiet voice. They were sitting side by
side on the threadbare jacquard-upholstered chaise longue nearest the window in the front parlor, finishing their coffee, Diana in the blue chambray, her aunt in simple white. The morning light was almost blinding where it struck the porcelain cups and the elder lady’s delicate fingers. Everything is beginning to disappear, Diana thought, rather melodramatically. Breakfast was over, it was just past eight, and in an hour, perhaps two, she would make her way west, to the piers, where Henry would be waiting. They had agreed that he would book passage for them at the last minute so as to avoid any report in the papers, and that they would spot each other and then board together just as the last call was being made.

  “Not old William Sackhouse, he couldn’t possibly have been,” Diana replied distractedly. She could not keep her thoughts away from the small case, currently hiding under her bed, which held a few favorite books and other necessaries, and how she was going to get it from there out the front door.

  Mrs. Holland eyed her daughter and cast arch glances at all the whispering that was being done on the chaise. Diana had always had much in common with her Aunt Edith, and in a strange way she felt that the older lady would understand what she was going to do that day. Yet she hadn’t told Edith about her and Henry’s plan. Some deep and abiding superstition kept her mum on this topic, and so she only fed her aunt little snippets of what she’d seen while she was abroad, and hinted, in a very general way, of all that would be between her and Henry.

  “…Ah, but when he was young,” her aunt was saying, to the window as much as to anybody else. “Henry is the spitting image of him….”

  Diana had become distracted by her mother’s approach from the back of the room, where she had laid down the morning papers. She wore a burgundy shirtwaist with minimal ruffles, and an exacting black stare.

  “What are you two talking of?”

  Edith looked up at her sister-in-law as though at an acquaintance that she had, until just that moment, forgotten, and her high cheekbones rose as she put on a faraway smile. “Oh…ancient history,” she replied.

  “Diana,” Mrs. Holland continued, ignoring Edith’s comment and moving to separate the two romantics in her midst. “We have entirely too many pastries left over from breakfast. Will you bring them over to your sister’s, please?”

  In Diana’s view, Mrs. Holland was framed by the clutter of generations: the portrait of her late husband above the mantel, the many worn Bergère chairs, the leather paneling and little decorative tables, the Turkish corner on her left. With that one simple command, Diana saw how she was going to remove her suitcase, and herself, from her childhood home. Only she would be leaving sooner than she’d imagined, her remaining minutes in the house harshly abbreviated. It was a shock, and her sauciness failed her momentarily. She stood lingering, glancing from her mother to her aunt as she adjusted the wide belt at her girlish waist.

  “Well, go on, then,” Mrs. Holland commanded. “You may have the coach.”

  Diana averted her eyes before leaving the room — the only way to leave forever is to do so as quickly as possible.

  When Diana reached Elizabeth’s house, she told Donald, the new driver, that she would really rather walk home, seeing as the day was so clear and temperate, and then she took the large paper bag of baked goods and her small case, which was concealed under a long coat — not that Donald was paying attention — and ascended to the front door. Although she knew her sister was not in love with Snowden, Elizabeth did seem very happy with her new life, and anyway Diana was relieved it was the older and not the younger of the Misses Holland who had traded her maiden name for the title Mrs. Cairns. For there had been a time, last winter, before Liz returned, when Mrs. Holland had bade Di to be a little good to her father’s former business associate, since he had done so much for them. So it was with tender relief — for all the things he had saved her sister from, and all those he had not deprived Diana of — that she greeted her brother-in-law.

  “You look a little tired,” she said sweetly, noting the bruised color around his eyes and taking it for proof that he was as worried about the arrival of Elizabeth’s child as though it were his own. They stood facing each other quietly for another moment, in that entryway that looked, to Diana’s eyes, too empty and a little harsh — the hammered black leather panels and polished birch wainscoting in sharp contrast to each other.

  “Yes…,” he began. “Your sister hasn’t been well. The doctor was here last night. He ordered her on bed rest until the baby comes, and gave her something so that she could sleep more easily.”

  Diana couldn’t help a brief flare of irritation as she realized that her sister’s health might imperil her escape plan. But when she asked, “Is Elizabeth going to be all right?” she was met with an immediate and confident nod, and her fear of being stalled faded almost instantly.

  “Of course, so long as we follow doctor’s orders and keep her lying down.”

  “Well, then I will give you these,” Diana went on blithely, feeling entirely reassured. She passed him the bag of morning buns and breads that was her excuse for visiting her sister one last time. “And give my sister just a quick kiss—”

  “I don’t know that—”

  “Mr. Cairns,” Diana interrupted, undoing the ribbon at her throat that secured her hat, “you are married to a Holland girl, so I expect you know I am not going to take no for an answer.” Snowden looked as though he might persist in preventing Diana from disturbing Elizabeth, who after all carried so much on her shoulders, and now in her belly. But Diana was leaving in a few hours, for a long time and without any plan to return, and there was no nervous young father-to-be who could possibly have stopped her. She pushed past him and up the stairs.

  “Miss Diana,” he called, on her heels, “I must insist….”

  From the doorway into her sister’s room, Diana turned and smiled graciously at Snowden, in that confident glowing way Liz used to have with suitors. “A little time with me won’t harm her. I’ll just sit a minute, and be on my way.”

  Then she stepped in and pulled the door behind her.

  Elizabeth laid in the white-canopied bed, which was heaped with fabric, her protruding belly only somewhat visible amongst all the coverlets. Her head was sunk back in the pillows and her ash blond hair streamed out around her head, and she breathed — a little noisily for Elizabeth, who Diana had always believed followed rules of decorum even in her sleep. There was something pungent, almost sickeningly sweet, in the air, which she couldn’t quite place, until she remembered that the doctor had been there. That was precisely the smell: as though the doctor had been there.

  As Diana approached and perched on the corner of the bed, she saw that the garnet-colored wallpaper reflected on her lovely, sleeping sister, and lent a little color to her pale cheeks.

  “Oh, Liz,” Diana said as she picked up her sister’s hand. It was limp to the touch, but then Elizabeth had never had a particularly firm grip. Her sister’s mouth opened and closed and she exhaled, and Diana took that as encouragement enough to go on. “I have taken your advice, I’m leaving—we’re leaving,” she went on in the loudest voice she could manage, which was not much more than a whisper. It was so incredible to her, what she was about to do, and even with her considerable powers of imagination she found she could not conjure what her life would look like in even a month’s time. “I am so sorry I won’t be here to greet your baby. But we will write often…and, as you said, it’s the only way Henry and I can be together.”

  For a time she prattled on — quietly, for she supposed it was really better not to wake Elizabeth if her health was indeed very poor. Her words almost slurred together, so heady a mixture of emotion was she feeling: anticipation, nerves, and now a touch of guilt for leaving her very pregnant sister behind. She might have gone on longer, even though the day was advancing and she had an appointment to keep, when her sister’s fingers strengthened against her palm.

  “Liz?” she whispered.

  “I’m not feeling well,”
Elizabeth said dreamily, without opening her eyes.

  “I know,” Diana answered sympathetically. “But you’ll feel better soon. Can I get you anything?”

  “Teddy.”

  “What?”

  Then, in the same soft voice: “Could you get me Teddy Cutting, please?”

  Diana’s mouth fell open. This was very odd. She might have dwelled longer on it, or on memories of her sister and Teddy walking arm in arm several months ago when they were all in Florida, but the door opened just then. Diana swung her head around to see the full figure of the housekeeper.

  “Hello, Mrs. Schmidt,” Diana said. “Liz really isn’t feeling well. She’s talking nonsense.”

  “Yes.” The broad-faced woman stepped into the room. “I think you had better let her have her rest, miss.”

  Diana sighed and glanced a final time at her sister, who pushed one side of her face and then the other into the heaping pillows. “Don’t forget, Di,” she whispered into the down.

  “Good-bye, Liz.” Diana bent forward to kiss her sister’s forehead, as though suddenly she were the older and more mature of the two.

  “It’s time to go,” the hovering Mrs. Schmidt said, and Diana knew that she was right. It was time to leave it all. Diana put her hands down on her thighs in a small gesture of readiness, and then she allowed herself to be escorted out of the room and down the stairs.

  “Is my brother-in-law still in?” she asked at the front door.

  “He has gone out,” Mrs. Schmidt replied.

  “Well, please tell him good-bye for me,” she said. Then, in a less convincing voice, “Please tell him I look forward to seeing him soon.”

  “Very well.”

  Once Diana had fixed her wide straw hat back on her head, she picked up the case, still hidden under her long gray coat, and went out into the day. Young girls who worked in grand houses were passing on the walk, and carriages and streetcars hurtled down the street in competition. She took a deep breath for courage, but before she could descend the stairs she had not been vigilant enough, that her plan had required greater caution. Standing near the curb, wearing a fitted brown jacket over her white dress and a plain cloth hat, was Edith.