It was later, after Diana had successfully tiptoed back to her room undetected, that the mysterious package arrived. Claire stood there demanding to know what it was, and Diana had been tempted to open it immediately. She and her maid had often whispered secrets about boys, and traded fantasies to each other that involved ocean liners and heirs to the thrones of small European countries. But something about this was too real to share, so she apologized to Claire and hugged her and asked to be alone.
She listened for Claire’s footsteps away from the door and then shimmied the round gold-embossed box top open. Nestled inside the charcoal-colored velvet lining was a very familiar hat, and a note:
Keep it. It looked so good on you I can’t stand the sight of myself in it anymore…nor the thought of the context in which I shall have to get to know you better.
—HS
She read his note maybe two hundred times trying to make sense of it. The thought of the context in which I shall have to get to know you better? What could that possibly mean? Then she put the hat on her head and felt dangerously in love with someone she hardly knew.
Eleven
The first stab of love is like a sunset, a blaze of color—oranges, pearly pinks, vibrant purples….
––FROM THE DIARY OF DIANA HOLLAND, SEPTEMBER 17, 1899
DIANA DID NOT TAKE THE HAT OFF UNTIL SEVERAL hours later, when she heard a soft knock on the door. Then she scrambled up from her idle writing position, pulled the hat from her head, and dropped the card inside it, quickly shoving both items under the bed and out of sight. The anemic rat-tat-tat on her door repeated itself, and she tucked her diary—whose pages recalled the secret meeting that was inspiring all those dramatic bursts of color—beneath her pillow.
“Who’s there?” she hollered, not bothering to disguise the annoyance in her voice.
The face of her older sister, with its pristine complexion, nudged beyond the door. Her eyes were as wide and blank as when Diana had last seen her in the parlor. The sisters hadn’t spoken since, but that was no surprise. They hadn’t really spoken—at least about anything important—in years.
“May I come in?” she asked gently.
“I suppose,” Diana replied, rolling back to the position she had happily assumed before the interruption, belly down and face toward her pillow. Her diary had been propped against it so that she could write, and now the same pillow was covering that precious compendium of her thoughts. She felt the need to shield it physically from any potential prying on her sister’s part, especially since her sister seemed like such a stranger these days.
Over the past two years, Diana had become used to sisterly betrayals. She had watched Elizabeth grow ever more proper and remote, and where once there had been closeness, now there was a low-lying resentment. The interruption of her sacred diary-writing time felt like a mild affront amongst a host of other, more serious offenses.
“I have something important to tell you,” Elizabeth said, her voice timid. The balance of the bed shifted as she perched herself on the far corner of the white chenille bedspread.
“Oh?” Diana rolled her eyes in the direction of the pillow, for what was important to her sister these days was most often irrelevant to her. And anyway, her thoughts had already turned back to whether Henry Schoonmaker had had many lovers and what exactly his chest would look like with Diana’s head rested against it. She was thinking that it was perhaps fortuitous that her family had chosen just this moment to become poor. Maybe that was the thing that would make her stand out from all the other girls who whispered about him, causing her to glow with a certain compromised luster. She had almost ceased listening to Elizabeth, so enchanting were her musings about Henry, when she thought she heard her sister say his name.
“What?” Diana said, pushing herself up on her elbow and turning to look at Elizabeth.
“Henry, Henry Schoonmaker? He came by this afternoon to propose marriage to me, and now we are engaged. I am to be married, Di—the family is going to be all right.”
Diana squinted her eyes and choked back a laugh. She was about to ask Elizabeth to repeat herself—for surely she had misheard, and mixed up the man in her thoughts with this boring engagement story—when her sister took her hand.
“I know it is all very sudden, but you see they have more money than practically anybody, and Henry is the oldest—the only—son,” Elizabeth explained, sounding as though she were trying to convince herself as much as her sister.
“He asked…you?” Diana said. Her lower lip dropped and her eyes widened in shock. She instinctively pulled her hand back to her chest. Elizabeth looked down, and Diana paused for a few moments to absorb this rancid information. The delicious memory of Henry Schoonmaker teasing her in the dark and dusty unused parlor had been snatched away from her. She wanted it back. “But you don’t even like him,” she went on.
“Perhaps in time…” Elizabeth kept her eyes down on her hands, where she was fidgeting with her cuticles. “He is very handsome, and, well, you know everybody says what a catch he is.”
Diana let out an indignant noise and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. The injustice was searing. It was so like the world to handle her this way, when something was finally about to happen. But her anger was growing, and she was now prepared to turn some of it on the man who was, apparently, her sister’s fiancé.
“Diana, why are you being sullen? This is good news.”
“Because you don’t love him,” Diana replied bitterly. And he doesn’t love you, she added in her thoughts. She might have gone on to say the man Elizabeth was planning on marrying was the worst sort of weasel, and that he had kissed the little sister of his betrothed what must have been mere moments after his proposal, but she did not. With all the novels Diana read, she should have known that villains often come with pretty faces. She had made a classic romantic’s error, mistaking that one beautiful moment when Henry’s lips touched her own for love, but she was going to keep that ugly secret to herself. She had earned it; it was her own. She closed her eyes and said, “Well…congratulations, then.”
Elizabeth smiled blankly and clasped her hands together. Diana had always found this a stupid gesture, and she found it particularly stupid now. “The Schoonmaker family has a very good reputation, and Henry is awfully polite and…” Elizabeth trailed off as if she could not think of a single other nice thing to say about him. She bit her lip then, and Diana thought she saw the glistening of tears in her eyes. “Oh…” she said as she covered her face with her hands.
It seemed pathetic that Elizabeth would be overjoyed to the point of tears by the sudden appearance of a fiancé with means, especially since she clearly didn’t think much of him either. Diana responded with a mocking guttural noise and then went back to looking at her pillow.
“Anyway.” Elizabeth recovered herself, brushing away the moisture from her eyes. “It will be good for mother, and for everyone really, to have a wedding. Flowers and dresses and everything fine and good. Everything new and custom-made…”
Diana sneaked a look back at her sister, and saw that her fair eyebrows had floated upward as she went on about all the pure, ivory, wedding-related things she was going to have. It was as though she’d spent the afternoon trapped in some underground sewer and had only now emerged, starving for any sign of cleanliness. In fact, she had spent the afternoon in the Hollands’ sumptuous parlor, and upon learning of their family’s financial decline had gone straight out and gotten herself engaged to the first wealthy man she could find. Diana couldn’t believe Elizabeth’s idiocy, imagining a white wedding with that slippery bastard Henry Schoonmaker, who had apparently entered their home that afternoon with the intention of finding himself a wife and a mistress. How very convenient for him. Diana wondered if he hadn’t come to repossess some of their furniture as well.
“And Di?” Elizabeth asked, but went on without waiting for Diana to respond. “Penelope and I made a promise to each other, when we were thirteen, that we would be each othe
r’s maids of honor. I hope you understand. But you’ll be one of my bridesmaids, won’t you?”
A mirthless smile crept across Diana’s face. She couldn’t help but appreciate, in a cynical sort of way, this ironic twist—being asked to participate in the ceremony for a union she felt completely disdainful of.
“Fine,” Diana replied in a resigned, world-weary tone. Once her sister was gone, she could begin the diary writing again, and this time in more maudlin hues. Elizabeth emitted a small humming sound of pleasure, and then Diana felt herself being taken up in her sister’s weak embrace.
“Oh, and Diana, don’t tell anybody, all right? Promise you won’t tell anybody.”
“I promise.” Diana shrugged. Her sister’s doings didn’t seem like a very interesting topic, and she hardly knew whom she’d tell, anyway.
“Good.” Elizabeth lowered her eyes. “I just don’t want this all to start happening too soon….”
Nor would that wolfish Henry Schoonmaker, thought Diana. He could doubtless use the extra few months to kiss all the Holland cousins and perhaps one or two of their maids as well.
“Of course,” Diana finally answered her sister. “Your secret affair is safe with me.”
And though she had been searching for words that might cut her sister, just a little bit, Diana couldn’t help but be surprised by the look of shock that crossed her sister’s face. It was just a joke—why couldn’t her sister take even the littlest joke?
Twelve
If the young Miss Penelope Hayes does not receive a marriage proposal from Henry Schoonmaker soon, then it will not come as a surprise to her alone. They say she was seen turning on all her charm for both young Schoonmaker and his father at her ball last night, which can of course mean only one thing: An engagement is in the works….
––FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1899
THERE WAS A STRANGE AND SUBDUED MOOD HANGING over the Holland household, but Lina didn’t care to think much of it. Her mistress, sitting in front of her at the shiny mahogany dressing table in her bedroom, was perfectly quiet and erect. Elizabeth stared impassively at her own reflection and never once let her gaze rise to meet the eyes of her childhood friend. It was only the second day of her return, and Lina was once again nothing but a maid.
It was still difficult to believe that Elizabeth—that perfect American girl, so celebrated for her lily-whiteness, so seemingly pure and helpless—would soon be sneaking toward the carriage house to do forbidden things with one of them. One of us, Lina corrected herself. She kept the silver comb going slowly over each pale strand, and pitied herself for the fact that the girl whose hair she arranged was her rival in love.
“All right,” Elizabeth said impatiently. “You may braid it now.”
Lina looked at Elizabeth in the mirror, and anger flashed in her eyes. A long moment passed, and before she could think about how to react, there was a knock on the door.
Elizabeth remained immobile, except for raising her chin ever so slightly. “Yes?” she called.
The door opened, and Lina twisted around to see her sister. She wore a black dress like the one Lina wore, and her red hair was pulled back from her face. A laundry basket was propped against her hip.
“You’re not done yet?” Claire asked, looking from Lina to Elizabeth.
“Oh, Claire, I’m glad you’re here. Would you mind braiding my hair?” Elizabeth asked, fixing her eyes on the reflection in the oval mirror. Lina drew her hands back from Elizabeth and stepped away to make room for her sister. Claire bent wearily to put down her basket, then advanced across the rich carpet, giving her sister an admonishing look as she did.
Lina hated Elizabeth for making her feel this way, and looked on in quiet anger as Claire quickly and skillfully separated her hair and wove it together into a tight, neat braid down her back. When she was finished, she stepped back and said, “Is there anything else?”
“That is all, but let your sister practice a little with your hair. She seems to have forgotten a few things during my absence.”
Lina stood, stung and silent. She was reminded of those painful feelings from her early adolescence, when Elizabeth the aloof perfectionist first began to emerge. It wasn’t until Elizabeth turned sixteen that Lina became her personal maid, but it was watching her friend’s transformation into a fashionable society girl while she remained plain old Lina that hurt the most.
“Of course,” she heard Claire say, before nodding and walking to the mahogany sleigh bed where Lina had laid Elizabeth’s dress. She scooped it up carefully and put it on top of her basket, and then grabbed her sister’s hand. Lina wanted to snatch it away and demand that Claire not patronize her, but she was too cowardly to speak out. “Good night, Miss Holland,” Claire called as she pulled Lina out the door.
“Good night,” Elizabeth said, and Claire widened her eyes at her sister warningly.
“Good night, miss,” Lina mumbled in a grudging tone.
When the door had shut behind them, Claire dropped her sister’s hand. She proceeded down the hallway, which, like the rest of the house, was decorated with low-lit paintings of a Manhattan of farms and hills and of the people who had settled it. Both the Holland sisters’ rooms were on the west side of the house, on the second floor, far enough from the master suite—Lina now realized—that one could come or go down the servants’ stairs without ever being noticed. Diana’s room faced south, and Elizabeth’s north onto the street. After a few moments, Lina followed Claire up the narrow wooden staircase, with the ceiling so low that they had to bend their heads, to the third and then the fourth floor.
The garret room that the Broud sisters shared with the other young female servants was impenetrably dark. They still used candles for light, and so when the sun went down, the room seemed to go on forever—miles and miles of rich black space. Lina listened as her sister stepped across the bare boards and fumbled for a candle. She waited in silence to be chastised, and longed to be far, far away. In a few moments the room came into dim view.
“I wish you wouldn’t give Miss Elizabeth cause for complaint,” Claire said as she lit a second and third candle. She stepped across the creaking floor to the brass bed that they shared. “Say something, Lina. Don’t go into one of your silent moods on me.”
Lina went to the simple dressing table, where the flickering candles sat, and picked up a few rusted bobby pins—hand-me-downs from the Misses Holland—with which she pinned back several errant hairs. She looked at herself in the cracked mirror, turning her face to the side to examine her profile. She couldn’t explain to Claire her burning sense of injustice, her need to change everything about her life. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you with the laundry today,” she said instead.
Claire sighed, glancing at the basket of clean laundry next to their bed. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Now, are you going to share what is so wrong?”
Lina hadn’t told her anything about Will, or last night’s episode, but her older sister had long been sensitive to her moods and was used to covering for her when she slacked off. This always gave Lina a vague, itching sense of guilt. But what was guilt compared to the furious brew of humiliation and unrequited desires she had been drinking since last night?
“It’s a good job, Liney, with a good family,” Claire went on, when Lina didn’t answer. She shook her head, and her copper bun moved in a slow, disappointed arc. “I don’t know why you are always stirring up trouble.”
Lina looked into her reflection. She felt, with her oversize feet, and her dull hair, and her total lack of fashionable things, like the lowest of underdogs. But this was an age of remarkable reversals, she tried to remind herself. One read about them every day. Fortunes could be made overnight, and diligence and inventiveness could transform a girl’s looks. Lina had always believed that there might be a beautiful girl lurking underneath her plainness.
“I’m just not used to having Miss Elizabeth back,” she replied a
t last. Even saying her name made Lina’s stomach curdle a little. It reminded her of how proud Elizabeth’s gestures were these days, her voice dripping with fake goodness. Every singsong of that voice reminded Lina of how out-matched she was. “It was all so much more manageable when she was gone,” she added defensively.
“I shouldn’t have to remind you that there aren’t many lines of work for girls like us.” Claire shook her head with a touch of extra vigor. She was working even now, Lina realized, folding the fine pillowcases that the Holland girls rested their pretty heads on. “And if we lose this job, well…we won’t be ladies’ maids in New York again. You and Miss Elizabeth used to be so close. Of course it can’t be like that now…but if you…”
Lina couldn’t possibly comment on that, so she went to her sister’s side and took the pillowcase she was folding from her hands impatiently. Claire turned her drawn and lightly freckled face to her sister. Her eyes were questioning.
“Oh, go and sit. You’ve been on your feet all day.” Lina punctuated her speech with a little jut of her head, and then continued in a softer tone: “Let me do some folding for once.”
Claire snorted and went around to the other side of the bed. She propped her head up against the headboard and crossed her ankles. For a few moments she kept her eyes on her sister, watching her almost skeptically as she folded. “Careful with the embroidered things,” she said as Lina shook out an ornately embellished shirtwaist.
“I am, I am,” Lina replied, smoothing her hand over the intricate embroidery. “Now would you please relax? Maybe you could read from the columns to me.”
Lina usually teased Claire about her favorite pastime—reading about the lives of the fashionable and rich—but she smiled at her sister now to assure her there would be no heckling about what a mind-numbing diversion it all was. Claire reached enthusiastically for the folded News of the World Gazette, and began to skim the report from Newport in search of the doings of New York society ladies on holiday.
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