DEPARTMENT STORES NO LONGER LOOKED THE same to Carolina. She had been told by Tristan that she had better get a dressmaker: Girls of her sort were not seen in ready-to-wear, he said, and she knew this must be the truth, since he told her so even to his own detriment. After all, he worked in a department store, and this would mean fewer sales for him. But it was only the day after Christmas, and all of the best dressmakers would be unavailable until at least the New Year, he had warned her when she arrived on a mission to purchase shirtwaists and accessories and skirts and a lace or two on Mr. Longhorn’s account.
The arrangement with Mr. Longhorn felt entirely easy and comfortable to her, she told Tristan when he asked. Though the older gentleman did not seem to want to hear any facts of her previous life, he did — when she hinted, over Christmas dinner in the hotel’s grand dining room, that she might have a sister in the city — say that the elder Miss Broad ought to have some presents for the holiday as well. And so Carolina had entered Lord & Taylor and looked across the rows of tables with their precious objects and felt neither fear nor unquenchable desire, but rather that she could simply have any of those things that interested her.
“At any rate, Miss Broad, you are looking very well taken care of today….”
Carolina twisted about, catching her reflection in the mirror, imagining that her contortions presented a view of her in which she possessed the long neck, the plush lips, the hazy eyes and fluffy hair of a Gibson girl. “Tristan,” she remarked with a certain languor, “I am going to need all your help today.”
Tristan watched her, drawing his hand along the edge of the polished cherry table as he did. He was in shirtsleeves and a brown waistcoat, and his chin looked soft, as though it had been shaved that morning. “Today,” Tristan replied, “there is no one else to serve. You, my lovely, are a success.”
Carolina’s cheek bent toward her shoulder. She wondered if he might try to kiss her again. Not that she supposed she should really be doing any of that anymore — but she couldn’t help but find the memory a little exciting. It was nice, she now knew, to be touched.
“It really worked, didn’t it?” Tristan’s voice had lowered, although she still wished he wouldn’t talk about it in public. “You didn’t think it would…I could tell. You looked so scared in the hotel that night. But I knew. I’ve been around, I know when to play a card.”
Carolina nodded faintly. She found she didn’t want to acknowledge the thrust of this conversation out loud.
“Before we go looking for things for you, though…” There was a quality in Tristan’s voice that she had never heard before, and it made her turn toward him. “The high-class ladies I’ve befriended in the past, when I’ve had a small debt to pay or some other expense, I’ve filched a little here or there and nobody has ever noticed.” He paused and looked away. Behind him, shopgirls hurried back and forth. “I have a confession to make. I took your money, but I didn’t know it was all you had.”
Before Carolina knew whether she should be angry or frightened or grateful for this news, whether her impression of Tristan was that he was more or less trustworthy now, he gave her a wolfish grin and went on.
“But you see how much better it worked out in the end? I hope you feel I have repaid my debt.”
Like any society girl confronted with an uncomfortable fact, Carolina felt overwhelmingly now that she simply didn’t want to have to think about it anymore. “Oh, let’s not talk about all that hash,” she said. Then she thought of something pleasant and smiled. “Let’s see what pretty things Mr. Longhorn doesn’t want to buy me today.”
His response didn’t come immediately, and she wondered in the interval whether he wouldn’t keep trying to bring up the past. But then a smile came, spreading steadily under the neat mustache, and there was that flash in his hazel eyes. “Yes, let’s,” he said, and offered an arm. As she took it, they moved forward across the floor, each one playing their part to perfection.
As Carolina’s strides brought her further into that sanctum of all that was fine and beautiful, she began to notice her reflection in the mirrored columns that supported the high, arched ceiling with its classic white filigree designs and dangling chandeliers. Everything held the light of precious metals, and it was all to reflect on her. Or girls like her. But she was now, most assuredly, a girl like that. One could see it, plainly, as the reflection passed from one gold-shot mirror into another, with the upturn of her nose and the careless cast of her pretty eyes.
She knew where they were going. The Holland girls had told Claire about it, and Claire had told her. They were going to one of the private rooms where special customers could sit in comfort and wait for things to be brought for them. She had even heard that there were sweets and champagne. Until that morning, she had never been sure whether she was even really wanted in any of the shopping emporiums. But now she felt completely taken up.
Just as they were about to pass into the elevator area, with its peacock-colored enamel-inlaid walls and large bronze arrows bouncing in arcs to show which floor the carriage was on, Carolina noticed something that made her lungs swell up with air and then crumple as though they had been rained on by shattering glass. “Oh,” she whispered quietly, to herself, so that no one else could hear.
Over there, walking between tables of neckties as though he had just walked down the plank and onto the harbor of a foreign country, was Will. Beautiful Will, with his serious eyes and his hair a little overgrown looking around him in that meticulous way he had. His skin had somehow or other been darkened by the sun, and he looked as though he had seen some hard things. There was a sweet ache spreading all over, and she had to close her eyes so that the feeling wouldn’t overwhelm her. In a moment she tried to open them, but found that she had to bring her hand up to cover her gaze again.
Maybe he really had read about her in the papers. Maybe he was there to fetch her. He hadn’t seen her yet, however, and even in her brief glimpses of him, she knew that he hadn’t made his fortune out west. He was wearing those same serge trousers, that same slightly too large black coat. There were no new comforts in his life, she could see that in a few seconds. But still she wanted him. The want had not faded after all.
“Miss Broad,” she heard Tristan say.
She nodded, to him or to herself she wasn’t sure. The elevator doors had opened, and other shoppers were passing them on their way to the registers. She moved her hand. It was somewhat easier to watch him when there were bodies passing between them. And though she felt so light as to have no control of her limbs, she found that a few more blinkless moments allowed her to see what she must do. The want was there, but she couldn’t follow it. Will was so close to her, and she had come so far. He would understand how foolish he had been if he saw her, but then she would have to come down, and she couldn’t stand that. She couldn’t stand to fall even a little bit.
“Are you all right, Miss Broad?”
“Oh…yes,” she said. She stepped away from Will and let go of the old wants. “Just a little headache that came and went.”
As the operator brought down the iron grate, she told herself she’d made the right decision. Her new friend Penelope Hayes would not have stooped at the sight of some passing fancy from years ago. Her desires would already have been set on something far better. It would be so like Elizabeth to stumble on sentimentality, to give up everything for some old dream.
“Are you sure that you’re all right?”
“Yes.”
She wet her lips and forced air back into her lungs. She thought of Mr. Longhorn as a young man and how many young men she had met just two nights ago and of all the things she deserved. She thought of the difference between real kisses and imagined ones. She smiled, although it was a weak sort of smile. She could not help but think, as she was borne upward beside Tristan, who seemed like so many things and was never quite any of them, that it was unfortunate that she had ever known him. It was true that she might have been too shy or gaffe-prone ever to win Mr. Longhorn�
��s patronage without him, but even so, he was becoming distasteful. He would have to be cut loose soon, too, she told herself, with that hardness that was taking form inside her heart. She would have to be nice to him for a while longer, but already she did not need him.
Her smile dimmed, but she kept looking at Tristan as she said, with a certain declarative panache: “In fact, I feel just perfect.”
Forty One
There has been much talk about the deceased Elizabeth Holland as of late. Many have suggested that with the recent discovery of her engagement ring, she has likely perished at the hands of a band of thieves. If she is discovered, she should quickly be married upon her return, no matter what unimaginable things have occurred in her time away from society.
— FROM THE EDITORIAL PAGE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1899
“IF ANYONE KNOWS ANY REASON WHY THIS MAN AND woman should not be wed, let them speak now or forever hold their peace….”
There was a slight murmur of approval and amusement across the room, and then it became very evident that no one was going to object. The floor had been covered in white petals; the windows had been draped in lace. The lesser parlor, on the east side of the Holland town house, was still lacking in furniture, but it made a perfect place for a wedding. They had moved in a small settee on which sat Elizabeth’s mother — much recovered from her illness, but still somewhat feverish and weak — and her aunt Edith, who had not stopped crying or smiling all morning. Behind them stood four of Snowden’s men, in their worn leather waistcoats and thick, off-white collared shirts. Near the covered windows stood Snowden, holding a Bible and his duties seriously, and to Elizabeth’s back were Diana and behind her Claire, both of them in white, both clutching the little bouquets of lilies of the valley and white roses that the three girls had put together that morning and tied with lavender ribbons.
In the center of all this was Elizabeth, wearing a new white dress of lined cotton eyelet that fit her perfectly despite not having been made just for her. There was lace tight against her skin at the neck and below the elbows, and it was cinched to show the little waist she used to be so proud of, but there was a certain bridal volume to the sleeves of the upper arms and to the skirt. The buttons at her wrists and the nape of her neck were covered in cream-colored silk, and very ladylike. Will had picked it out, since her mother had forbidden her from even so much as looking out the windows. Her hands were now extended, holding Will’s. He could hardly meet her eyes and he was very still; she realized that he was nervous. She hadn’t seen him nervous in a long time, and the realization made her heart swell up. He was wearing a new, dark brown suit with a waistcoat and white collar. She had had no idea what it would do to her, seeing him in a suit.
“Elizabeth Adora Holland, do you take William Thomas Keller to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
“I do,” she whispered. Her eyes were damp, and she couldn’t stop looking at Will, with his broad shoulders and his big blue eyes rimmed in their dark lashes. It was an irony, she thought, that it was her engagement ring that had paid for flowers and a new dress and the suit, but she was glad that Will had been a part of selling it, and not just because he had bargained with the pawnbroker and gotten the best price. Years later, when Will had proven himself and they had watched each other change in time, they could tell their children that story. How an object that had once seemed like it might pull them apart had in fact bought the clothes they were wed in.
“Do you, William Thomas Keller, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
Now a smile began to creep onto his face. Once he said, “I do,” the smile was there, and permanent. He had been holding their rings in his pocket, and he reached for them now. They were simple yellow gold bands that her mother had found amongst the family heirlooms, and they placed them on each other’s fingers now without pomp.
“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride,” Snowden said.
Elizabeth had thought of this moment with trepidation all through the morning. Her physical closeness to Will had been so long a secret, it seemed strange and a little frightening that she would have to kiss him in front of her mother and aunt. But in the moment there was nothing more natural. She wasn’t even sure how he reached her, or how the kiss began. But then their lips were together, soft and fervent, and she knew that for all the things she regretted leaving behind, there was a rich, bright future right ahead of her, full of everything she wanted and much that she hadn’t even imagined yet.
When she heard clapping, she knew that the moment was over. She stepped back and Diana embraced her. Poor Diana — it seemed as though all the strength had gone out of her arms, even as she used them to hold on to her sister. Her shiny brown curls spilled all over Elizabeth’s shoulder. Although Elizabeth had listened to several hours of tearful confession about Henry’s betrayal, and though she had coaxed and reassured her and sworn that she was positive Penelope had played some trick or other, she could not help but be a little relieved that her sister would not be sneaking around with him anymore. She had told Diana, truthfully, that she believed Henry was in love with her. But she could not help but feel a little scandalized by what Diana had done with him, despite her years of slipping down to Will’s carriage house bed, and she knew that she would sleep a little easier in California knowing that Diana was not always at risk of being found out.
Her mother had come, a little unsteadily, to her feet. Edith, still sitting on the mahogany and burgundy velvet settee, watched her to see that she could stand on her own. She could, and proceeded forward to kiss Elizabeth’s cheek. Then she turned to Will.
“I have known you a long time and I have always liked you,” she said simply. The skin above her upper lip was set and stern. All around them, in that sparse room with its sea green walls and carved wood ceiling, with its vases so recently filled with fresh flowers, the witnesses shifted and waited to see what Mrs. Holland would say. “And my late husband liked you more than I did. I would not have let this happen otherwise. I won’t pretend that this was my first choice for how my child would marry, but I know that she’ll be happy with you, and safe.”
Will’s face was at its most serious, and he nodded thankfully. This was the loudest endorsement he was likely to get from Elizabeth’s mother, and he knew it. “Thank you, Mrs. Holland,” he answered, and then extended his hand for her to shake.
Elizabeth watched as her mother gave him a curt smile and a faint nod. She knew that it was difficult for her mother to do even this much — it had been Edith’s cajoling that had allowed as much ceremony and acknowledgment as this — and Elizabeth was very grateful for it. Later, on the train, she thought, she would tell Will how much they had Edith to thank, and they would plan some gesture of gratitude that they could extend toward her when their oil money really started coming in.
“Mr. Cairns, how lovely that was,” her mother was now saying. The obsequiousness of which she was sometimes capable had crept back into her voice. “How fortunate we have again been made by your presence. It seems you will surprise us with some new, secret ability on every new day of our acquaintance.”
“I am honored to do it. But now you must excuse me — I have some small business to attend to, and I’m sure your family wants a few moments of privacy together.” Snowden took Will’s hand and shook it and then turned to Elizabeth, where his small eyes briefly lingered. She couldn’t help but marvel at how lucky they were to have met Snowden, and at how naturally kind he was. She felt as warmly toward him at that moment as though he were part of the family. “My congratulations to both of you, Mr. and Mrs. Keller.”
When he left the room, his men followed him, and then the Hollands were alone again, illuminated by the dappled light that was filtered by the lace curtains. Most of the original paintings were gone, but there were still a few grand depict
ions of roiled seas on the wall. The parlor retained the aura, which Elizabeth remembered it having when she was a little girl, of being the place where obscure, grown-up things occurred. Claire went to prepare tea and cake, and Elizabeth sat down beside her mother on the small settee.
“When Snowden returns to Boston, he will have the certificate drawn up and sent to you in California. It is less likely to be noticed if he does it there. Oh, Elizabeth,” she whispered, placing her hands on her older daughter’s cheeks, “I will miss you, I will miss you. But you must go soon. The longer you stay, the more likely it is that you will be discovered. And you know it will be the end of this family if you are.”
Elizabeth nodded and held her tears. She might have told her mother how much it meant to her that she had been married before the family, but in the end she decided it was unnecessary. There were a few days left of the year, and she would spend them in the company of those she loved most. They would eat meals together and get used to the idea that she was Mrs. Keller. Then, on New Year’s Eve, which Snowden had advised would be a slow travel day and the time when they were least likely to be noticed, she and Will would collect all their things in two small suitcases and say good-bye to Gramercy a second time, and to New York forever.
Forty Two
The announcement this morning, in a one-line item in the World, that Miss Penelope Hayes is engaged to be married to Mr. Henry Schoonmaker is a lovely bit of news. Of course, given the report that the engagement ring young Schoonmaker gave to his previous fiancée, the late Elizabeth Holland, has resurfaced, we cannot help but wonder what will happen if the lady who used to wear that ring should resurface as well….
— FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1899
THE HALLS OF THE HAYES MANSION ECHOED AS Penelope ran through them, her small dog pressed to her chest. She was so close to everything she wanted, and yet she could sense all the insidious forces poised to take them away from her. Her long shadow fell across the black-and-white-tiled floor as she moved, under the impossibly high mirrored ceilings of the first floor of No. 670 Fifth Avenue, that redbrick-and-limestone colossus that few would feign call a home, and which was capable of spooking even a girl as self-possessed as Penelope on her rare vulnerable days. The rumors about Elizabeth’s return had ruined her sleep, and the image of Henry and Diana together had destroyed what should have been perfectly lovely waking hours. When she saw the English butler in the front vestibule, she paused and went breathlessly to him.
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