Splendor

by Anna Godbersen

  His face was full of questions, but all he said was, “Tristan…? When we saw him at the opera, you told me he was nobody.”

  “Darling,” she began, casting her eyes down on the ruined dress and clasping her hands nervously together. The term of endearment echoed false in her ears; it was not the sort of word a girl like her used. When she spoke again, it was in her own voice, and to tell the whole, messy truth. “There are a few things about me that I really ought to have told you sooner.”

  Thirty Four

  Perhaps the heat has gotten to the city’s most well-heeled citizens, for it has been a month of rushed weddings, bizarre coiffures, and unforgivable behavior. In the final case I am speaking of Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker, of course, who has been seen all around town with the visiting prince of Bavaria, without the slightest attempt to feign even a modicum of subtlety about it. What peculiar cocktails has the demimonde been drinking?

  ——FROM CITÉ CHATTER, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 1900

  MRS. HENRY SCHOONMAKER WAS PERFECTLY content to step outside the gothic church on lower Broadway and into a brilliant afternoon. She wore a pert little smile, despite the whispering and hissing that followed her everywhere, and a hat that was as broad as her shoulders and festooned with cloth roses and other delights. The wedding of Carolina Broad had been called off most abruptly and unusually, but it was just as well, for the outfit she wore—a fitted ivory bolero with gold stitching, and a dress of pomegranate-colored crepe de chine, cut to best display her naturally tiny waist—was too flattering to waste on God. Although there was something faintly disappointing about having a girl whose reputation she had allowed to be associated with her own make such an embarrassment of herself, she wasn’t particularly bothered. Nor was she ruffled by the unkind stares of women who, a week ago, had considered her the wronged party in the Schoonmaker scandal. Soon she wouldn’t need any of their friendship, or even that hard-won surname, which had in the last few days begun to chafe.

  They had been intoxicating days. She and the prince had dined together every night, and stayed up long past supper dancing wherever the champagne was cold and expensive. How many aspects of herself had she recognized in this strong, sparkling nobleman! For he was tall, like her, dark-haired and blue-eyed, and he knew with great certainty that his life should be about having the best of everything. She had dreamt of meeting her match in looks, in taste, in wealth—she’d thought Henry had been that match, but Henry didn’t have her vision, and anyway it didn’t matter anymore because even if he got it, at this late date, he still couldn’t make her a princess. Not a real one.

  “Now that old Schoonmaker is dead, the whole household has gone to pieces…,” said Gemma Newbold, exiting the church behind Penelope on the arm of her older brother, Reginald, and using a speaking voice that, despite its decorous quiet, was not meant to go unheard.

  Penelope exhaled noisily, and shrugged in a way that ensured that Miss Newbold, who had not yet received any marriage proposals, despite her supposed beauty, would not miss it. Europeans, she had discovered in a few days’ time, were flashier in the way they cut their rivals, and did not fall all over themselves when a married woman had a little fun on the side. Let them talk, the prince had said to her whenever she put on a little modesty, and by Sunday she was beginning to think as he did. That was how she was going to live from now on.

  Without turning back, she descended the Grace Church steps and let her driver help her into her polished phaeton. Then she told him to take her to the New Netherland.

  Late last night, Frederick had been telling her about his family’s winter castle in the Alps, where he planned to spend that Christmas, skiing and exchanging rare gifts with his many cousins, and he suggested that it would be far more enjoyable if she were there at his side. December was soon, she’d thought, as the idea of how much bigger and fancier her life was going to be started to settle in; but then, she had never been a girl who was shy of working fast. On the ride to the hotel, she composed a note to Henry.

  “Peter,” she said, once her driver had helped her down to the street, “please deliver this to Mr. Schoonmaker.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said. They all referred to him as a boy, even though he was practically her father’s age. “When would you like me to come back for you?”

  “Oh—that won’t be necessary.”

  There was only one piece of her seduction left. Her dramatic red lips pressed up into a smile, as she passed Peter a fifty-cent piece. She was telling him good-bye.

  The prince’s suite overlooked the park, and was decorated with exquisite antique furniture that, taken together, suggested a British hunting lodge of a hundred years ago. It was a room that Penelope had come to know well over the last week, but she had never been there so early in the day. The heavy drapes were mostly drawn, and a diffuse light did only a little to illuminate all the sturdy mahogany furniture and brass fixtures. She paused, feeling the slow tick of a mild irritation as she realized that the setting was not the ideal one to display herself—her skin would seem too phosphorescent, her dress would appear not nearly red enough.

  “The prince is still in bed,” said his valet. He was British, his age impossible to determine, and his manners were impeccably unfriendly. “Shall I wake him?”

  Penelope descended the four steps into the sitting area, on her way to the window. “By all means,” she said, as she disengaged her hat and tossed it onto an armchair upholstered in green and gold jacquard. She made her way through end tables and carved ashtrays as though these sundry pieces belonged to her already, and pushed aside the drapes.

  “This is more like it,” she heard the prince say from behind her, as the light of midafternoon flooded the room. “I’d like to wake up to you more often, Mrs. Schoonmaker.”

  She turned and parted her lips suggestively. Frederick was wearing a silky wine-colored robe, tied at the waist, and his hair had not been combed into place. It rose above his forehead in a robust, chestnut brush. The robe had been tied indifferently, and this afforded her a greater view of his chest than she had ever had before. As she stood, staring at him, feeling her heartbeats increase despite her specific intentions to the contrary, he put on the cockeyed grin that she had begun to think of as just for her.

  “Does it please you?” she replied slowly and purposefully.

  “Very much so.”

  The valet reappeared, and without letting his eyes stray to either the prince or his visitor, he placed a tray with croissants, coffee, orange juice, and a bottle of champagne on the low, carved table in the middle of the room. Frederick thanked the valet and instructed him which clothes would be needed for his and Mrs. Schoonmaker’s evening revelry. The valet bowed and absented himself, and then Frederick walked to the center of the room and took up the bottle of champagne. The corked air was still wafting over the mouth of it, as though just opened. He poured himself a glass, sat down on the sofa by the table and reclined.

  “To things that please me,” Frederick said, raising his flute and taking a sip.

  Penelope’s fingers moved to the delicate buttons of her little jacket. One at a time she undid them, and then dropped the garment on the floor. Frederick’s eyes were fixed on her now. She strolled across the floor and paused, standing over him, holding his gaze. She reached for his glass and drank until it was empty. Then she sank down to her knees in front of him, throwing her arms forward around his waist. The blue lakes of her eyes, she knew, were at their most persuasive when viewed from above.

  Before she became Mrs. Schoonmaker, she’d only been kissed by three boys, and Henry was the only one of those who she had allowed to do anything more. But already she felt a kinship with Frederick, like she too was one of those debauched Europeans who took lovers as they pleased, and she wanted him to understand how completely they were two of a kind.

  She blinked at him innocently. Then she pressed up, between his legs, putting her face close to his and inviting his kiss. There followed an exquisite moment of he
sitation. He reached forward, as though he might cup her face with his hand, but instead pulled the pins one by one from her hair so that it fell, in a glossy, dark ribbon, and burst upon her shoulder. Only then did he put his mouth against hers. There was such size and warmth to him, and she felt a surge of desire to burrow in against that. His firm fingertips moved from her hair way down her back, and then he gripped her, pulling her up.

  “There,” he said, when she was situated on top of him and his hands were deep in her ruffled underskirts. “I don’t think I will be needing those clothes tonight after all, do you, princess?”

  Thirty Five

  H—

  It’s been an awful week, and I find

  myself, at the end of it, tired

  of chasing you. If you want a

  divorce, you shall have it, and I

  won’t even be difficult.

  —P

  HENRY HAD WAITED ON THE STOOP OF NO. 17 Gramercy Park in all kinds of weather, but none so fine as this. He was still wearing the mourning band for his father, and he had dressed, in a dark jacket and bowler, thinking more of serious topics than of the sunshine. Diana had told him, through notes written in her lovely scrawl, that he was welcome to come by her home anytime, and to hell with what everybody thought, but he had had so many things to see to that it wasn’t until Sunday that he found the time. It did not occur to him, until he was standing at the door with his finger on the bell, that it had been almost a year since he had lingered on the same spot, waiting to reluctantly propose to the older sister of the girl he would come to love. His father had insisted upon it, and told him that Sunday was the Hollands’ day for receiving social visits—if he had not obeyed, who could guess what might have been.

  A slight girl with big teeth appeared on the other side of the glass. In the moment before she accepted his hat, he mistook her for the maid who had intruded on him and Diana the first night they lay together. He wondered what that girl had traded for her secret, and where she was now, and if she would have been shocked to hear that Penelope Hayes, who had once paid a no doubt dear price for the information, had now become indifferent to her marriage. Or so said the note, folded up in his pocket, which he’d now read countless times.

  “Is Miss Diana in?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied hesitantly. “And Mrs. Holland and Miss Edith Holland, as well,” she added, as though in warning.

  “Could you please tell them that Mr. Henry Schoo—”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Schoonmaker.” She bowed her head awkwardly, as though she regretted the confession, and then walked to the pocket door, which groaned as she pulled it back. He waited to hear her announce him, and then stepped into the small, old-fashioned parlor where the Holland women received.

  “Why, Henry,” said Mrs. Holland, rising from her place by the window.

  Edith, positioned closer to the dusty mantle, stood also, and Diana, who was tucked into the pillows of the Turkish corner, pushed herself up on her elbows, appearing a little breathless and rosy as always. The mistress of the house had not spoken in a particularly warm tone. Henry knew from the way she hesitated—she kept the full length of a Persian carpet, from which years of traffic had mostly worn away the pattern, between them—that she had heard the unpleasant stories about his affair with Diana. Of course she didn’t convey this in any overt manner.

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” she went on coldly.

  “We all are,” said Diana’s aunt, in a voice that sounded meek in contrast to that of her late brother’s wife.

  “And I am very sorry I wasn’t able to attend the funeral,” Mrs. Holland continued, ignoring the other lady. “But I thought Diana would make a suitable emissary for our family.” She sniffed, and then he realized that she hadn’t known Diana would attend, and that if she had had her way none of the Hollands would have come anywhere near the Schoonmakers while rumors about them were in circulation.

  Diana was watching with dewy, dark eyes, which darted between Henry and her mother. So she had gone without her mother’s permission to see his father put in the ground. To his surprise, he found that it was possible for him to love her even more, when he thought of the courage and carelessness that had been required for her to stand there, still and sincere, in the background, but close enough for him to sense her presence.

  “I understand, of course, these are not difficult times for me alone,” he replied. “We have all lost. Although I hear that things are better in the life of Elizabeth—while our engagement did not end as planned, I hope you know I am very happy for her.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It was a great comfort to me that the Hollands were represented at my father’s funeral—I know he would have liked it—and Miss Diana, in particular, was a sight for sore eyes after my many months at war, and after this very sudden tragedy.”

  Mrs. Holland briefly closed her black eyes, acknowledging this lie, and then refocused them on her guest with even greater fierceness. Henry, however, did not flinch. He had struck his own tone, and he found that he was able to stand before this imposing little doyenne with the full confidence of any very capable man of his class.

  “I wonder if you might let her walk about the park with me? She always says the most comforting things, and I do not have many comforts these days.”

  Diana had already come to her feet. Pale pink seersucker covered her still faintly brown chest and arms—it was almost a surprise to see her in a proper dress like that, after their time away, as well as to notice that her rich brown hair had grown long enough to curl under her ears. She never could be hemmed in by her clothes, and the vivacity and girlishness that he had always adored in her was evident in the way the fabric conformed to her movements.

  “I do not control my daughter.” Mrs. Holland’s words were dry with just a hint of ire.

  “I will have her back to you soon,” he replied. Then he gave a slight bob of the head good-bye.

  Diana moved through the clutter of the Holland parlor with great poise, although he knew her well enough by now to see what a struggle it was for her not to rush straight to him. For his part, it took all of his concentration not to smile at the absurd good luck of having had such a beautiful girl fall in love with him. She was prettier every time they met again. He followed her out through the pocket door, and watched as she fastened her flopping straw hat to her head.

  Then they began to amble around the park, her arm resting lightly against his. It was just the walk he had done with Elizabeth, the day he had proposed to her, when he still had no idea how delightful her younger sister would prove to be. He had been so awkward then, and he felt so natural now. Of course he was careful not to seem too familiar, since her mother was surely watching from the windows. He wouldn’t have minded if they didn’t say anything, he discovered presently, so long as they could keep moving together through the warm summer air.

  As they rounded the northwest corner of the park, she said, in a very proper tone, “What a shame we haven’t seen you much lately, Mr. Schoonmaker,” as though she were amused by the idea of pretending, for the sake of any spies or gossips, that they hardly knew one another. He wanted to share in the game, but he found that it made him a little sad. There wasn’t anything funny to him about their separation. It suddenly seemed to him such a waste of time, to speak this way, all style and subterfuge. “But then I know you must have a lot of business to attend to after this strange turn of events.”

  He glanced at her face, mostly covered by the shadow of her hat, and wished that he could show her some real affection. “I miss you,” he replied quietly.

  “And I you,” she answered in the same affected tone as before. Then, in a whisper: “You have no idea how.”

  “I might agree with you…,” Henry said as they strolled through the open gates and into the verdant park. Gravel scattered under their feet as they passed benches and flowerbeds. “…except that I feel the lack of you so intensely myself.”

  Beneat
h the straw brim, he saw her mouth twist into a smile. This did please him, although the larger part of him needed to look her straight in the face. “Well, very soon, Mr. Schoonmaker, you and I shall be on a ship bound for a country where neither of us will know anyone, and so you shall have me to yourself quite completely.”

  Henry’s eyes closed involuntarily. “About that…,” he began.

  “Oh, Henry.” Diana stopped and turned, so that she was finally looking straight up and directly at him. “Don’t put it off another week. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “But everything is different now!” He had not planned a speech, and now wished he had. Somehow he had believed that Diana would have already come to realize, on her own, what luck had befallen them. His excitement over the neat design of it all was profound, yet he felt uncharacteristically tongue-tied now that he had to make her see. “My father dying so early was tragic, but if one good thing comes of it, let it be that you and I can finally be together. Really together. His political ambitions, his influence—none of it matters anymore. With him gone, with my inheritance secure, there is no reason for me not to divorce Penelope, aside from a few old-fashioned naysayers, who will at any rate be thoroughly demented long before our children take their first steps.” Henry smiled at the thought. “Not even Penelope will stand in our way anymore.”

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew the crumpled note, which he had fidgeted with on the drive to the Hollands’. She read it, and though it could not have taken her long, still she would not show him her eyes.

  “Diana, it’s wonderful, isn’t it? You see—a week ago it was all so complicated. But not today.” He reached for her little hands; he was practically singing this news. “I have my own money now, and my own house. Everyone will do as I say. And they will call you Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker, and you will be the lady of that house.”