Rumors

by Anna Godbersen

  It had been a sore disappointment that such an extraordinary-sounding sum didn’t go very far in the lifestyle of a girl like Elizabeth. And Lina was not proud, either, that her life as a lady, or something like it, had been made possible by such a sordid transaction. But she had done what she had to do. Her object had not really been to make herself into a society girl—she just wanted to make herself enough Elizabeth-like that, when she was ready, she could go out west, and then Will would see that it was Lina he’d wanted all along. Or at least, when he heard of Elizabeth’s death, that the new, shiny Lina could fill that hole in his heart.

  Lina had never been above taking Elizabeth’s seconds, even if it was her mistress’s death that now allowed the passing down. She wanted to find Will as much as ever. She believed that that time was near—it had to be, or her money would run out first.

  Tristan was placing the gloves she had chosen, the little lace shawl, the Persian lamb muff, the new pair of onyx hose that sold for two dollars and twenty-five cents—Tristan had introduced them to her, and now she could not live without them—each in its own box, with the same magical, crinkling tissue. Lina watched with dizzy joy and a vague sense of dread as these objects were folded and placed, wrapped, and then boxed. Once they were boxed, that meant they were hers and that she would have to pay for them.

  “Shall I have these sent to your hotel?”

  “No…” Lina paused and looked away. The late afternoon light was coming in through the high, Romanesque windows that faced the street. Already the day was getting away from her, and she couldn’t truly be said to be grander than when it began. When she stepped outside the weather would have dropped, and all the workaday people she so wanted to distinguish herself from would be massed at the store’s plate glass windows to gawk at the Christmas display. At moments like these she couldn’t help but feel a little sad and recall how devastating it had been when, after years of secret longing, she had one night confessed her feelings to Will and then been sent away. She wanted to be sure that such a rejection wasn’t repeated, and reminded herself that she must perfect her transformation before she saw him again. “I’ll be taking a hansom, of course—I can carry them myself. But please do send the bill to the hotel.”

  Lina had recently stopped carrying her new wealth on her person—which had been a kind of nervous obsession when she first went out on her own—and had cautiously begun to embrace the luxury of paying later. She kept her Penelope money in a small silk purse with a leather drawstring buried deep in her drawer of lacy underclothes. In her own experience as a maid, this drawer had possessed a taboo aura; she assumed the maids at the hotel would feel the same way and not go through it too carefully.

  “Of course, mademoiselle.” Tristan paused and grinned in a way that a real lady probably would have deemed too familiar, and said, “I could accompany you, if you needed assistance.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Lina said, looking away from him and subtly turning up her nose. “If you’ll just help me on with my coat, I’ll be going.”

  Lina alighted on the corner of Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Once she had firmed up her story and smoothed out some of the details of her performance, she had traded up from a rather seedy hotel on Twenty-sixth Street to the New Netherland, where the bellboys wore royal blue uniforms. It was a wide building of turrets and arched windows with a dignified brown façade, and it loomed over the buildings around it like a terrific sand castle. She had heard somewhere that the Netherland was the tallest hotel in the world, and that was why she had chosen it over the Savoy, its next-door neighbor, or the Plaza, on the west side of the avenue. The three hotels formed a corner around the southeast entrance of the Central Park, and below them stretched the mansions of Huntingtons, Vanderbilts, and Hayeses. The thought that she lived so near people of that caliber still gave Lina a pleasant little electric shock.

  Her room was not the best, and still it cost twenty-nine dollars a week. She couldn’t go on like this forever, she knew that, but it hardly mattered, since she would soon be with Will. Strong, capable Will—he would take care of her, and in the meantime, she hoped some of the elegance of hotel life would rub off. That, and she liked returning to her room to the surprise of a swept carpet and a bed remade by some invisible mechanism. She liked stepping out and seeing that a cab was waiting on the street, as though her arrival had been anticipated exactly.

  Lina looked at the driver, and gestured that he should help her with her purchases. She threw her shoulders back and walked, in her practiced way, toward the arched entrance. Despite her freckles—which spread across her nose and darkened her complexion even in winter—there was a natural dignity to her appearance. Her mouth had the effect of pouting, and her eyes were the color of lichen, and there was an upturn to her nose. She wore a fitted tan coat with dramatic lapels that flattered her waist and somewhat unfeminine shoulders, and a little matching hat with a black plume that bounced as she approached the desk.

  “Miss Broud, good afternoon,” the diminutive clerk behind the massive mahogany desk greeted her.

  As she usually did at such moments Lina concentrated on hiding the pleasure her new surroundings caused her. For the floor was an opulent mosaic with a shiny finish, and the electric light of the chandelier reflected off the marble stairway as though it were the entrance to a grand court in Europe. The lobby smelled of perfume and coffee, and it quietly suggested to anyone who entered that there was no place else to be. If only Will could see me at just this second, she would think when she was standing there, he would forget that he ever loved Elizabeth; he would see the perfect girl who had been hidden right in front of him, disguised in the rough.

  Lina tipped her head in muted acknowledgment. “My key, please, Mr. Cullen.”

  It was when the clerk turned away that she became aware of the presence close behind her. She brought her head around sharply—she thought she had been clear that the driver should wait near the door until one of the bellboys came for her things—and came face-to-face with a far better-dressed man. He wore a burgundy velvet smoking jacket and black slacks, and his ivory collar came all the way to his carefully shaved chin. His features were fine, except for his nose, which belied a taste for the drink, and he was grinning at her in her in a way that might have been flirtatious. She couldn’t be sure of this, however, because he was older—too old a gentleman to be flirting with a seventeen–year-old girl, she thought. But then, there was so much she didn’t yet understand.

  The clerk had returned with her key, but he was watching the man in burgundy deferentially and made no move to hand it over to Lina. She waited for the gentleman to speak, and when the seconds had added up, her heart began to pound for fear he knew her secret.

  “Are those your things?” he asked, pointing to the driver, who had in fact been waiting patiently near the door with his hat in his hand and his eyes focused on the arched ceiling, according to her instructions and with appropriate awe. “Because the bellboys here—forgive me for saying so, George—are inexperienced and cannot be trusted with such finery.”

  Lina had never been in a situation like this one and was without any idea of the proper response. The clerk wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “My apologies.” The gentleman inclined forward in a kind of bow without taking his gaze off Lina. “Mr. Longhorn, at your service.”

  The full name was Carey Lewis Longhorn. She knew it from her sister, Claire, whose favorite pastime was reading society columns. He was older than she had suspected then, and richer too—the heir to a banking fortune, if Lina wasn’t mixing him up with someone else. He was known for a string of broken engagements in his youth, and a series of attachments to countesses and fashionable matrons in middle age, and for currently having a large collection of portraits depicting the beauties of the present day. Lina was amazed to see that he was still grinning at her. His eyes were a pale blue that suggested the liveliness of their owner, and his gaunt cheeks rose sharply with the smile.

/>   “Thank you,” Lina finally replied. She knew her hesitance and confusion showed but there was nothing she could do to change it. Beyond Mr. Longhorn, she could see that his valet was already collecting her boxes and paying the cab driver. The clerk offered the key to Mr. Longhorn—still with immaculate deference, and without even acknowledging that it belonged to Lina—and then she found herself following him away from the desk.

  “Are you staying in the hotel with your parents?” Mr. Longhorn asked as they stepped into the elevator. The attendant was closing the mahogany and stained glass door. Lina’s gaze had floated upward to the iron lacework of the ceiling as the ornamented cage jerked and drew them higher. The movement of her eyes had more to do with a continual wonder at the mechanics of vertical conveyance than sadness, but she was not entirely displeased by what Mr. Longhorn said next. “No, I didn’t think so. I have seen you here several times, and always alone. The world is never easy, but orphans are a special case. I am sorry for your loss.”

  Lina lowered her eyes to the black-and-white-tiled floor. “He died in the mines,” she lied. “A routine inspection. Father always insisted on doing them himself rather than trust an underling. Copper smelting, that was his business, and he had several mines of his own, too. My mother could not take the shock and her heart gave out within a month. They worked so hard so that I might enjoy this….” She paused to gesture at the gilded elevator, and let her lower lip just quiver. “And though it’s not always easy for me, I think they would want me to enjoy it still.”

  Mr. Longhorn’s gray eyebrows rose slightly, and for a moment Lina feared that she’d been improper. For though parts of Lina’s story were true—both of her parents were dead, making her technically an orphan—she was no heiress, and there were moments when she felt like a tremendous fraud. But apparently Longhorn did not think so, for he concluded, with a compassionate smile, “A girl after my own heart.”

  “Ninth floor,” the attendant announced as they jerked to a halt. He drew back the door, and as they passed into the hall Lina noticed that he too averted his eyes from Mr. Longhorn. She couldn’t help but be a little impressed by all the awe this nearly gray man inspired, even as he offered his arm and began to escort her down the plush carpeting of the hall to her room. She could hear the footsteps of the valet close behind, carrying her precious boxes.

  When they reached her room, Mr. Longhorn leaned forward to unlock the heavy oak door. To her relief he made no attempt to enter. He handed her the key, and said, “With your permission, Robert will put your things on the table.”

  Lina’s room was too small to have a table, and she was relieved to hear herself answer with an alternative: “He can put them on the settee by the window.”

  The valet moved quietly and efficiently to do as he was told.

  “It has been a pleasure to meet you, Miss…”

  “Broud. Carolina Broud.”

  “Miss Broud.” The old gentleman leaned forward and took her hand to kiss it. The valet exited her room and waited patiently in the background. “You have been very kind allowing me to accompany you for a few moments, and I hope you will be willing to repeat the favor this evening.”

  Lina looked back at the valet, as though he might confirm that all of this was very unexpected and perhaps a little inappropriate, but he did not meet her gaze.

  “You see,” Mr. Longhorn went on, with what Lina thought might have been a twinkle in his eye, “I have taken a box at the opera for the season, and tonight is the opening, and I have nobody but Robert here to share it with. Would you mind terribly if I asked you to join me?”

  Plain little Lina Broud in a box at the opera; she could not have been more surprised if he had presented her with a diamond tiara and crowned her the queen of Persia. She had spent all morning dressed as a society girl, but tonight, rather than remain invisible in her room as she usually did, she was being offered the chance to walk among them. She would be brilliant and looked on, just like the girl Will had believed himself to be in love with. Her first thought was to apologize to Robert for taking his seat, but then she told herself to smile, and realized that she already was.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. It was far beyond her control to sound less eager. “I would love to.”

  Six

  After years where everyone wanted to over-bedeck themselves in the ultra-new, it seems that simplicity may again be in vogue. The best people are having quiet little dinners and cutting their day dresses from plain muslin. But remember: There is simplicity and there is simplicity, and the elegant variety is not always as easy as it sounds.

  —DRESS MAGAZINE, DECEMBER 1899

  THERE WERE ONLY A FEW THINGS IN THE LITTLE cabin on the Keller lease, but what was there Will had made a point of acquiring for Elizabeth. In the middle of the dirt floor was a square table that Will had built, and over to the side was an old brass frame bed that he had bought off a wildcatter gone broke up in Lancaster, the same one who had sold them the horse. There was the brass-framed oval mirror that was hung over the tin water basin—both of the same provenance—and it was there that Elizabeth still arranged her hair before dinner every night, usually in a little bun high in the back, like the center of a pincushion. Hair done, water brought up from the well, she had now turned to a task she knew very little of. Elizabeth Holland was attempting, once again, to make dinner.

  A clutch of the orange poppies that she had taken from the field yesterday sat in an old mason jar at the center of the table, which was covered with the same canvas they used for everything. Beside them was a little pile of Will’s books—Geological Techniques for Locating Petroleum Beneath the Earth’s Surface and How a Man Digs a Well in the Wild. She had managed to get a fire going in the little iron stove in the corner, but opening the cans of baked beans was proving too difficult for her. The opener was rusted, and she suspected that Will had found it somewhere—a bit of thrift that she would have considered admirable at any other moment, but was currently so distressing to her that she wanted to scream.

  This was in fact what she did next. She let out a cry that might very well have been—it occurred to her even as her throat began to vibrate and her lungs became empty of air—the loudest noise she’d ever personally made. When it was over she was still alone, although she felt better. She put her hand on her abdomen and closed her eyes. Her lips turned upward in a slight smile; it was, after all, amusing to think that she was so far away from all those fine things she’d so worked to be and finding herself unequal to even small tasks. To be incapable was as new to her as vociferous outbursts.

  She put down the can and sat at the table. It was that part of the day when she usually became conscious of having been alone for a long stretch, after Will had stayed out in the field for many hours with Denny, the partner he’d found in Oakland. Those were hours beyond her realm, and she didn’t try to understand what they did out there. The world of labor had always been Will’s world, and a mystery to her, and while this had once seemed like a plain fact, it did make her feel a little guilty lately. She knew he had spent time setting up their home—which would have been a natural task for a different kind of girl—that he could have otherwise used to explore the field. Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to be with Will, but she couldn’t help but wish—at moments like these, late in the day, when, in New York, the sun would have already gone down—that she could better keep up with him. It was the perfect society girl in her, and she only longed to prepare a frontier supper with half the aplomb she used to deploy chatting with visitors on Sunday in her family drawing room.

  She sat there for a while thinking of those people she’d left behind and of those several thousand miles that separated them. She wouldn’t miss them so if only she could see into their lives a little more, if only that distance were slightly more conquerable. Every now and then she would read a week-old newspaper that mentioned some New York news, but that mainly stoked her worry, for it was inevitably about how her mother wasn’t her old self or how Diana
still was.

  “Lizzy!” Will called before he was even through the door. Elizabeth looked up from the table, and already she was up in his arms. She was in the air and being swung around. Her arms were tight at his neck, and she clung to him, feeling again how right it was for her to be in this place at this time. She was taking in his scent—that mixture of sweat and plain soap and some other musky quality just beyond her grasp—when he spoke in a quiet voice. “Today we had luck.”

  He set her down, and as her feet touched the floor, she looked up into his face. It was full of sun and light, and his pale blue eyes looked lucky indeed. “What kind of luck?”

  “Oil luck.” He paused and pressed his thick lips together and watched her. His breath made his chest rise and fall under the threadbare collared shirt rolled to his sleeves. His hair was dark from the sweat where it hadn’t been bleached by the sun. “Denny and I, we found it. We found oil—shiny, black oil. You can smell it out there. I just know there’s lakes of it underground. It’s seeping through the rocks. The air is full of sulfur. We’re going to follow what my book says and dig a well and sell it to the refinery in Lancaster, and then we’ll be able to hire more workers. For a while we’ll have to spend everything we make. But it’s right here—we’re just sitting on it, the thing that’s going to make us rich.”

  Will had been speaking so quickly and with such excitement that he had to stop and take several breaths. But the energy was in his face and body; he was heaving with it. He took off the serge trousers, which he wore every day when he left home, because they were smeared with the sticky black stuff. He put on the long underwear he wore to sleep in, all the while telling her how oil was extracted and how much he thought would be there and what barrels of crude were selling for these days. She hung the trousers on the back of the bed, so they wouldn’t soil anything else, and watched Will as he went to open the can of beans and continued talking about the team he would need to hire and what the returns would be.