Anna Godbersen - Envy

Many of my usual sources have been silent at this quiet time of year, although some of my new friends have pointed out to us the striking presence of the younger Holland sister, Miss Diana, at the Hayeses’ last night, where she was said to be the special guest of the family scion, Grayson. Whatever could it all mean?

— FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE, SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1900

WHEN THEY RETURNED FROM THE CHURCH, Diana wanted nothing more than to go up to her room. The ceremony had been short and dour and there had been no guests outside of their little family and a few members of Snowden’s retinue. Reverend Needlehouse had officiated, glancing occasionally over at the bride’s sister as if she had a bad smell about her. Afterward the bride and groom had gone to their new apartment house, and the Holland family had returned to their home on Gramercy Park, and Diana was once again the lone sister in a sad home. She put her foot on the stair, but before she could return to her own private anguish, her mother blocked her path.

“Di, your sister is very lucky.”

Diana looked back at her mother, still dressed in black as she had been for over a year now. The youngest Holland’s clothing — a navy wool dress in a modest cut — was not much less somber, and she would have been at pains to declare which of them was the gloomier.

“I know,” she said after a moment.

When her sister had revealed to her the secret she had been bearing in silence all these weeks, a stone had flipped over inside Diana and all the vague disquietude she had been experiencing over the thing she had done with Grayson, in one of his family’s galleries, showed its full, mossy form in the light. For she had committed an act that could have terrible and unexpected consequences, and the knowledge dragged her further down.

“If it is true what I read in the papers — that Grayson Hayes has taken a special interest in you — then that would be very good,” her mother concluded, and then Diana knew that her mother was disappointed by the marriage that had just taken place. For while it would smooth appearances and allow Elizabeth to have her child, it was not the glorious match that Mrs. Holland had so clearly hoped for. “I have not always approved of the Hayes family, as you know, and there might be other suitors whom I would prefer for you. But their fortune is large, and though it pains me to say so, they are the future.”

There was no way for Diana to respond to this without telling her everything; and of course that she could never do. So, wincing, she nodded her understanding, and then she went up the dark, paneled staircase, which heaved a little under her weight. The whole house was showing its age. Or its youngest member, at least, was feeling a hundred years older than she had on her return from Florida, and it was with weariness commensurate with this feeling that she drooped into her own bed. What else would she have to go through, she wondered, to fill up the pages of the story of her life? That volume was already very crammed.

The physical act that had joined her and Grayson was not so different from what she and Henry had shared, all those months ago, and yet she felt so different this time. After Henry there had been a wonderful, peach-colored halo all around her body; now she felt sodden with regret. Every time she closed her eyes she was forced to relive those heated moments with Grayson, and the memory scorched her. There was that ghost of Henry in the door in all her recollections, and it hardly mattered whether it had been a real or imaginary witness to her transgression. What she had done had not been for love, and that was all the difference.

No matter what her mother said, she knew she would never marry Grayson. He had told her that he loved her, and for all she knew it might be true. But she could not return the sentiment — she had never felt so little doubt about anything — and that meant she was very tawdry indeed. She had just watched her sister promise herself to a man whom she did not love, and while the expression on her face had been muted, Diana had seen clearly how much it pained her to marry again, so soon, when her love for Will had been so pure and was still so recent and alive inside her.

Diana brought her knees up to her chest and made herself into a ball on her bed. It was there in that room, with the salmon damask walls, the white bearskin rug, the old gold-upholstered wing chair, that Henry had come to her that first time. They had lain together on that rug, over by the small tin-covered fireplace. She would have given anything to return to that moment in time, before she discovered that Henry was not what he had seemed to be, and what gross errors she was capable of. She was exhausted by all she had done, but she could not cry. There was no changing any of it — it was an inescapable part of her now.

She had gotten what she wanted, although not in the way she had imagined. She had wanted to feel different, and indeed she did now — she felt worse. She was older, and she had lost a good deal of innocence, but if she had believed that Grayson could make her stop thinking about Henry, she had been outrageously mistaken. Henry had taken up permanent residence in her mind, and for the first time what he had done to her no longer seemed so terrible, for she had done exactly the same right back to him, and now knew how thin the rewards were.

By this evening Elizabeth Holland will have wed her father’s former business associate, Mr. Snowden Trapp Cairns, in a private ceremony at the Grace Church. One can only assume that after all she endured last fall, she wants a quieter life, and a less showy man than Henry Schoonmaker to share it with….

— FROM THE “GAMESOME GALLANT” COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL, SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1900

THE DOVER WAS A CREAM-COLORED BUILDING OFF the park in the mid-seventies, and its apartments contained parlors and libraries and maid’s quarters. There were elevators and laundry chutes on every floor, and the whole place gleamed with its brand-new modernity. The Cairnses’ unit took up the whole fourth floor, and to its new mistress it looked very strange. The furniture had never been used, by her or by anybody, and it appeared to have been arranged with more practicality than art. Everything looked expensive, and yet there seemed to be not nearly enough objects.

“What a beautiful place,” Elizabeth said as she came through the door.

Snowden smiled at her, and held out his hand for her cape. One of his men had made a fire in the fireplace, and her husband gestured for her to sit near it. The rain had continued on, and now that everyone knew under whose protection her child would be born, their attention had shifted to Elizabeth keeping healthy and not moving about too much.

They had gone together as a family to the church, and then, in case there were any watchful eyes looking to see if there wasn’t more to this match than the papers were reporting, Elizabeth and Snowden had returned home alone just like any married couple. “No one ever thought a Holland would live that far north,” her mother had said obliquely when they parted.

Elizabeth had never been so tired. It was that exhaustion that comes only after a prolonged and terrible worry has been put to bed. But she was far too weary to parse her mother’s choice of words, and after a moment she followed Snowden’s gesture and went to the white muslin — upholstered Eastlake sofa and sat down. It was soft but a little boxy, and she wasn’t sure quite how to sit on it. Tomorrow she would make this place look more like home, and on every following day, until her child was born. But there was no need to worry about all that just yet.

Snowden was still standing in the entryway in his dark brown suit, which he had bought earlier that same day at Lord & Taylor, the department store. Elizabeth’s simple ivory dress had been purchased there as well. It had a mandarin collar and sleeves that were full almost to the wrist, and it had been ready-to-wear and not crafted especially for her. There had been something discomfiting about all this, and she realized during the exchanging of vows that this was because it was all so similar to her and Will’s wedding day, and that in fact the suit that Will had worn was strangely like the one that Snowden had chosen.

“What are you thinking, my dear?” her husband asked from the shadows.

“Oh,” Elizabeth sighed. She took a quick breath and attempted a smile. Then she moved forward on the seat and shrugged. “It’s only…” Perhaps it was the fatigue, but Elizabeth suddenly feared she might cry. That seemed awfully ungrateful after everything that Snowden had done for her, and she frowned, trying to will away tears.

“Go on,” Snowden said gently. “You can tell me. There’s nothing you can say that would bother me.”

She closed her eyes. “I was just thinking that until this evening I was Mrs. Keller,” she whispered.

Snowden came over and sat down beside her on the sofa. She looked at him a little reluctantly, and then when she saw that his expression was a kind one she sighed, and fluttered her hands, as though to say it was all just ridiculous sentimentality, even though that couldn’t be further from her true feelings.

“Of course.” Snowden smiled at her. “I know you will always be Mrs. Keller in your heart.”

“You were only being kind,” Elizabeth replied remorsefully.

A maid was hovering in the doorway, and Snowden gestured for her to enter. She came over to the little geometric oak table in front of the pair and poured them each a glass of red wine. Snowden waited until the woman in the black-and-white uniform had disappeared, and then he raised his glass. Elizabeth blinked and picked hers up too. Their glasses met, and then she tried to take a polite sip, although in truth she had no taste for alcohol just then.

“To our family,” Snowden said before he drank.

Elizabeth smiled and placed her wineglass back on the table by the stem. Then something else occurred to her.

“I suppose I am legally married twice now.” She said it almost as she thought it, and without concern for how it would sound to Snowden. Then she looked at her new husband, and saw something strange behind his eyes. “I am — aren’t I?”

A terrible silence followed, and at the end of it, Elizabeth knew that the next sentence she heard was going to be a lie.

“Yes.” Snowden faltered a bit on the first word, but by the second he was speaking smoothly and assuredly again: “Of course you are, but since the paperwork for the first marriage was filed in Boston, and since there are sure to be more than a few Elizabeth Hollands and Will Kellers in this world, I am sure that there is nothing to worry about.”

Then he smiled and cupped his hands over hers, where she had placed them primly on her lap. She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t nearly so worried about being found out as she was about honoring the memory of Will. The peculiarity of that moment stayed with her, though, and try as she might, she could not stop herself from feeling unnerved. But then she closed her eyes and told herself that she was married to someone else now, and perhaps Will’s memory was something she would have to nurture in secret, and there would always be strange moments between people that never need be explained.