Envy: A Luxe Novel Part 12

Grayson's lips parted slightly as the possibilities began to sink in. He swallowed hard, and then he said: "What do you want me to do?"

Penelope smiled broadly now, and tossed the end of her cigarette into the fire. "Bat the mouse, Grayson, but harder this time, all right? Make her fall in love with you in a way that she'll end up regretting forever."

He put both of his feet against the floor, and rested his elbows against his knees.

"I know you've made lots of women feel that way already." She could see that he was going to acquiesce, so she let her voice turn a touch patronizing now. "It won't take too much effort."

Penelope returned to her settee and took Grayson's crystal snifter from the little regency side table and sipped. He must have been desperate, for he ignored her insinuation and looked up at her with focused eyes. "How soon can you have the money?"

Penelope opened her own large blues magnanimously. "Oh...as soon as you agree to wipe that aura of innocence off our little Di." She let one eyelid fall in her signature smoldering wink. "And Grayson? Don't bother being too discreet. It would be so much more fun if everyone"-by which she meant Henry-"knew she'd been compromised."

Thirty Three Miss Diana-

When I come by you are always

out. When I send messages to you,

it's as though you've disappeared.

When you grow bored of torturing

me, please call at the Hayes

mansion for a visit.

-G. S. H.

D IANA LOOKED OUT HER WINDOW AT THE INEVITABLE snow that fell on the middle lot yards. She pushed a stray curl away from her nose and wondered at all that enormous feeling that remained within her, even after so many blows. It was now clear that she had deceived herself all those long months-and yet she still yearned for Henry. When she thought of him she thought of the breakers in Florida, which had swayed her back and forth during the day and then later on in bed, too, even when they were only a memory of sensation and the faintest sound in the distance. Henry was like that too-he still swayed her, even so long after the fact. She was tired of it. She closed her eyes.

Her small body slumped against the window frame and she tried to imagine that all the pull she felt in Henry Schoonmaker's direction could be formed into a tight ball of newspaper and casually dropped into one of those fires that tramps made on street corners in weather like this. It would smolder to ash, and then the soft snowflakes would fall on top, melting and disintegrating it to nothing. When Diana opened her eyes, she knew that her trick of the mind had failed. She made a little petulant noise-"Gah!"-and pushed herself away from the sill. Somewhere in the house, Elizabeth was moving from place to place like a ghost that had an axe to grind with the living, and their mother was clasping and unclasping her hands. Every being in No. 17 was distracted, and so it was easy enough for her to locate a wrap and slip out the front door unnoticed.

"Will you place the bet for us, Miss Diana?"

Hearing her name out loud, in a shadowy house of chance-over the constant noises of dice hitting hardwood and cards mid-shuffle and pealing laughter-caused an uncontrollable shiver up the younger Holland girl's spine. But then she reminded herself that all eyes were on the clubs and spades, or the black and red wheel, and that even if they had been curious about her, she wore a cat-eye mask dripping with black jet beads. Grayson had handed it to her when he met her at the door of the Hayes mansion, just before he whisked her into a waiting coach. He had kept a sheltering hand on her as she placed her foot on the little iron step, and his physical closeness had not abated since they arrived at the gambling hall somewhere on West Twenty-third. She had been unnerved by this at first, but she had come to see that-despite the red velvet seats and the chandelier that hung over them like some vast, illuminated jellyfish-this room was very different from all the rooms she had been in before. No one here was in the least shocked that she was positioned on Grayson Hayes's lap, or that his hand went back and forth across her knee.

"But I don't know how," she cooed, like some ingenue in one of those French novels that she kept under her bed. She had been watching the roulette wheel spin, and had by that time figured out how the game was played. But she enjoyed feeling his broad arms come around both sides of her as he whispered in her ear what to do. The low-lit room was reflected in the vast ormolu-encrusted mirrors, which faced each other so that the scene of black-suited men cl.u.s.tered at tables across the carpeted floor and, here and there, a woman like her whose hair was still covered by her evening wrap, repeated over and over again.

The place Grayson had taken her to was a short drive but a long way from Gramercy or Fifth. Diana liked the idea that this distance brought her far from Henry, too. Oh, he was still there, thumping in her head, but now there was also Grayson, who, while hardly the same man, was at least in the same category of man. They wore the same bespoke suits, for instance, and carried similar cigarette cases, and harbored like dishonest intentions, and anyway, every moment she spent with Grayson, he eclipsed the memory of Henry a little more, so that soon she was fully in the blooming moment of spinning wheels and whirring ceiling fans and cigar smoke thick and dusky in the air, and there was no past and no future and only the man whose barrel chest she leaned back into a little dizzily.

A waiter in a deep purple waistcoat paused to refill her champagne gla.s.s-she was unused to having her gla.s.s refilled so casually, or so often. Grayson whispered again in her ear, but she didn't hear what he said, and was not bothered by the fact. She placed their bet.

"Are you sure?" She could hear that he was a little frightened and a little thrilled by where she had placed their chips.

She only nodded and winked at the croupier, who called out for the rest of the men crowded around their table to place their bets. Then he let the roulette wheel spin and the little white ball fly in the opposite direction, above the blur. She closed her eyes and imagined that she was floating, that she was unattached to everything in the whole vast universe. That Gramercy was gone and money a game that children played at. She would have to go back to that sad house and her own sad room, but not just yet. She would go later. When she opened her eyes again, the ball had fallen into a pocket.

She blinked and it was only a moment later that she realized that the pocket corresponded to the single number on which she had put every one of their remaining chips. All around them, gamblers gasped and clapped Grayson on the shoulder. She felt his hands tighten around her, one palm on her belly, and then he brushed his lips against her cheekbone.

"I can't believe it," he whispered. And then: "You must be my lucky charm."

It took another few moments before she could believe it, either, and then she was able to finally take a breath. Perhaps it was the sweet fizz of the champagne, or this very foreign realm she had too easily slipped into, but she did feel, in that moment, anyway, very lucky, or very lovely, or whatever it was he had said.

She threw back her head and laughed, raising her small white arms into the air, full of some feeling approximate to joy.

Thirty Four My readers know that I am exceedingly honest, and that I strive to give every question its full and most accurate answer. Yet, there are some things that never go said, and that still each mother knows in her private way to do, in order to protect her young and innocent daughters from the harsh glare and opinion of the world. Try to think on such things only in the winter, and pray you do not have to keep too many secrets.

-MRS. HAMILTON W. BREEDFELT, COLLECTED COLUMNS ON RAISING YOUNG LADIES OF CHARACTER, 1899 E LIZABETH PAUSED AT THE DOOR. SHE HAD BEEN hoping that if she lingered before knocking, her slight shoulders might cease to shake. But she had been there some minutes already now, and she was no steadier than when she'd arrived. On the other side of the door was the morning room, where so much of the work of the house was done by the Holland women's own hands these days. Her mother liked to crochet and worry there, crochet and worry, although when that lady went into the room after dinner she had still believed her greatest trouble was that her daughters had gone to Florida and back without securing marriage proposals. Elizabeth raised her fist to knock; she was going to have to tell her mother that there was something else to worry about, and better to do it before the physical evidence became overwhelming.

"Come in," was Mrs. Holland's sharp reply.

Elizabeth came around the cracked door. She had chosen an old dress of rich brown muslin, with a high waist and puffed sleeves, although inside she was all white fear. The gown was too large for her in some places and too small in others, and it blended with the dark stained wood of the room so that Elizabeth's soft, pale heart of a face must have seemed almost to float as she leaned back into the door to press it closed. This invisibility did very little to alter the heaviness she felt within, for she was weighed down by all the things she had done and could not take back. She had meant to live only for the good of her family, but now she carried in her a stark fact that would make them suffer all over again.

"What is it?" The quality of Mrs. Holland's black eyes changed when she saw her daughter; she brought her chin up and the skin of her throat tightened, for perhaps she already sensed some very large piece out of order. There was a fire going beside her, which flickered in her watchful eyes. She put down her hook and yarn and appraised her daughter, before gesturing gently that she should approach.

Elizabeth crossed the room and sank down beside her mother. The older woman's face was hard as always, with its tough lines around the thin mouth, but she gazed at her daughter with an imperturbableness that had warmth deep at its core. "Tell me," she urged.

And then Elizabeth did. Her confession came in tumbling breaths and was punctuated with little sobs. "Before Will...before he died, we were...as one, as man and wife...." She paused to put her forehead against her mother's knee. There was some wetness on her lashes, and she did not want it seen. "And now I believe...I know." She gulped air. "I know I am. In a family way."

By the time Elizabeth raised her face up to confront her mother's reaction, the lady's expression had become implacable again. If she had been shocked or wounded by this final misstep of a once-prized daughter, she did not show it. There were many lifetimes of disillusionment behind her steady gaze, and she did not attempt to coddle her child.

"That is unfortunate," she replied formally. "Though not wholly unexpected. I blame Will as much as I blame you." She inhaled sharply, and moved her crocheting tools from her lap to the floor. "I told you that I would not force you into another unhappy engagement, Elizabeth, but I'm afraid this changes everything. You know this will be the end of us if anyone discovers it, don't you? Yes?"

Elizabeth nodded unhappily, her pillow of blond hair bobbing with her.

"You will have to marry now, or, if you can't manage that, we will have to take care of it. I know of a house where such things are done." Now it was Mrs. Holland's turn to be racked by a shudder, although it pa.s.sed so quickly that if Elizabeth had blinked she might have missed it. She was glad she had not, for in that moment she knew how her mother really felt about this suggestion, even if she did find it so necessary.

"I will talk to my friends, the friends I have left, and see if there aren't some possible suitors for you. Perhaps it can all be done quickly and quietly. But I fear it will be the other path, and for that, my child, I am very sorry." She placed a small hand on her daughter's head and sighed. "Go now. Get your rest. In the morning we will do what needs doing."

Elizabeth nodded again, feeling strangely like a child even as one grew inside of her. She couldn't bring herself to look at her mother again, and instead rose solemnly and turned to the door. She thought of all the things she had wanted to say-how sorry she was, what a disappointment, how she had meant for things to be now and why they had gone awry-but she found that she had no energy or will to explain herself. She went out into the barely lit hall, and then carefully one step at a time down to the second floor and her own bedroom, where there was no fire, but at least a s.p.a.ce where she could be alone with her secret.

There she lay back against the mahogany sleigh bed with its white matela.s.se bedspread and let her arm drape over her face. She waited for her breathing to calm down, but it did not. She remembered for a moment how she had felt with Will-how safe and sure that he would always know what was right. But that was a precious thing that had been taken from her. She was alone now, and if there was a right thing to do, she could not see it. A month ago, all the correct behaviors had seemed possible. Her family had needed her so terribly badly, and she had planned to do everything for them. She had allowed Diana to go follow Henry Schoonmaker, and it only seemed to have caused her more harm, and since then the elder sister had been so absent. She had scarcely spoken to her younger sister since their return; she had been too absorbed in her own fears to see how Diana was holding up. And her mother-it was almost too much to think how far she had strayed from her mother's expectations of her.

She drew her hand over her forehead and looked listlessly toward the window. The snow had stopped at some point during the night, and there was now a clear view of the half-moon in the sky. She wondered if Will could see her now, and she felt guilty all over again, not just for her family but for the days of ease and happiness she had experienced in Florida. The memory made her wince, and she wondered if she weren't being punished for it; if her current predicament weren't somehow retribution for having, for a moment, slipped back into the old subtle pleasures of the life she'd been born to, with all its soft texture, its politeness, its oblique glances.

Then her breathing did finally begin to relax and she blinked in the darkness that was now cut with white moonlight. She was thinking of Teddy again, and his presence in her mind made her wonder, however briefly, if maybe her situation weren't so fraught and impossible after all.

Thirty Five In New York nowadays one is always hearing about new women whom one is supposed to keep an eye on. The latest of these is Mrs. Portia Tilt, whose husband's fortune is in coal or some such, and she seems to be throwing a lot of parties. Reader, dear, you know I have ever been the skeptic, and with my skeptical eyes, I will be watching.

-FROM THE "GAMESOME GALLANT" COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1900 C AROLINA KNEW IT WAS HER DESTINY TO SEE LELAND again, although she would have been hard-pressed to explain how that would ever come about. Luckily, thoughts of the man she had imagined close to a proposal in Florida were all in her head, and so there was no need to make any of it logical to anybody else. She tried not to dwell too carefully on her current circ.u.mstances, either, which were a million miles from just a week before. She was wearing a plain black dress again, though this one at least had a high, stern neck and some attempt at ornamentation around the chest. She had lived for a few days in one of those rickety places downtown, and now she had her own room-close to the servants' quarters, in another woman's grand home. There was nothing about this new situation that made Carolina feel even a little bit grand.

"Miss Broad."

"Yes?" Carolina's eyes fluttered innocently, and she knew that her face a.s.sumed that serviceable, cowlike expression that it had worn so often in her years as a lady's maid. Her voice became suddenly girlish too, like that of a woman who has not yet learned to ask for what she deserves. "What is it, Mrs. Tilt?"

"Miss Broad, you need not look so frightened!" Portia Tilt was already a little drunk, and it did not do kind things for her garishly done-up face. She was smiling charitably at Carolina, but only because she now felt more powerful than her. It was quite evident that the western transplant, upon whom Carolina had not wasted even a minute of thought when they'd crossed paths at Sherry's, liked having someone whose name had been in all the columns to boss around. "I was only going to tell you that you are welcome to play bridge with the guests if you like. You will have to borrow against your wages if you want to bet, but maybe you're a good player and will come out ahead."

Carolina blinked her wide-set, sage-colored eyes. She nodded a little dumbly, and then let her gaze drift so that she could see through the satinwood doorframe. Arranged at little French antique card tables were people who once had been her peers. They had all dressed in their finest to see this new Tilt woman, just as they had once done to meet the Broad heiress. She recognized, for instance, Mrs. Carr's high trilling laugh, although she would have been aware of that lady's presence at the Tilt town house anyway, for Carolina had handwritten her invitation. Mrs. Carr never turned down an evening, which was one of the reasons that Carolina-in her capacity as Mrs. Tilt's new social secretary-had recommended her as a guest. A woman beginning her career must take friends were she can, Carolina had advised tactfully, although she would do well not to exclusively a.s.sociate with divorcees as her reputation grew. It had pained Carolina to give away such wisdom, but then she no longer had very much to barter.

"No, thank you," she said quietly. "I'd rather not tonight."

Mrs. Tilt shrugged her shoulders, her indifference to Carolina's suffering exaggerated by the vast heaps of red satin ribbons that crowned her lace sleeves. Yellow curls sat above her undistinguished face, catching the light of the chandelier. Mrs. Tilt's social secretary had held that t.i.tle only three days by then, and already she resented everything about it. She loathed it, in fact, and feared that others would get wind of this indignity, which was the true reason-although the idea of borrowing against her wages certainly was humiliating-that she preferred not to play bridge that night. Longhorn had taught her, and she was in truth a canny player, but the idea of being pitied by Lucy Carr was too much for Carolina, and so she hung back against the doorframe as Mrs. Tilt swept forward into the room and took her place beside Tristan.

He looked up briefly at Carolina, causing her to draw backward into the hall, where she was invisible and could only see a sliver of the goings-on in the Tilts' second-floor card room. It had been Tristan's suggestion that Carolina take the social secretary position, and also he who had planted the idea in Mrs. Tilt's mind. That lady swerved past the salesman now, planting a red kiss on his cheek as she made her way to the adjacent high-backed chair, which was covered in new gra.s.s-colored jacquard. It was a gesture that was meant to mark her territory, Carolina knew, but she didn't mind particularly, even though she had allowed Tristan to kiss her twice. She saw now that he was like an illusionist who captivated women with a little sleight of hand, and once she had seen the mechanism, it had lost all power for her. The kisses had only been accepted in loneliness, she told herself, and there was no reason Leland would ever have to know.

Now the chandeliers-far smaller than the ones in Leland's home-bathed society guests in twinkling light, and the smell of cigarettes was sickly sweet in the air. Carolina closed her eyes, and remembered how she had been a prized part of similar circles in rooms that smelled like this one. That she should be hiding in the hall, in a house like this-too far west and too far uptown to have any real importance-made the skin under her collar burn. The house of a woman, moreover, who didn't think twice of baldly touching her lowborn lover in the house that her husband's millions had afforded her. It was the kind of behavior one would have thought more rightly at home on a Nevada ranch.

A waiter was pa.s.sing her, into the card room, a carafe of white wine in his hand, and she reached out and tapped his arm.

"Webster Youngham prefers red." She had seen this same man unwittingly pouring the great architect white earlier, and knew that he would not accept another invitation if things were not done more correctly. He was a very ent.i.tled gentleman, and rightly so, or at least that was what Mrs. Carr always used to say. The waiter nodded and retreated. A moment later, he reappeared with a bottle of red.

"Pour from the right," Carolina added, before the man crossed into the card room. It had been a kind of instinct, and she felt immediately angry with herself and Tristan and Portia Tilt for having put her in a situation where she might again act so slavishly over someone else's desires. She let out a breath of embittered air and turned in a hurry from the irritating scene. Mrs. Tilt wouldn't be needing her anymore, and it was just as well to wallow in her room as right there. The self-pity that Carolina felt in that moment was of an irascible and overwhelming nature; if some little bird had suggested that her life was far more comfortable here than at the Hollands', or than it would have been on the street, she would have shot it down.

She strode forward on the oak floors, not bothering to step lightly in her high-heeled slippers. She was too good to make herself quiet for anyone, to hide, or to look after stray waiters who had not been given proper instructions. She was very nearly mouthing these facts to herself when she heard her name, spoken with what she would have formerly believed was the correct stress and reverence.

"Miss Broad," said Leland Bouchard.

"Oh." Carolina came to a stop, and her face fell. She was horribly conscious of the simple arrangement of her hair, which was parted down the middle and drawn up in a bun behind her head, and of the dress which her new mistress had considered more appropriate for her than any of those that Longhorn had paid to have made just for her. She managed a little curtsy and tried to say h.e.l.lo.

She must have seemed strange-she knew very well that she appeared dumbstruck and terribly off-but you would not have known it from the way Leland was looking at her. He was beaming; if she hadn't been so unhappy about his finding her in reduced circ.u.mstances, it might have occurred to her that he was pleased to see her.

"We haven't met at all since Florida. Have you been hiding from me?"

"You mean you haven't read the columns?" Carolina whispered numbly.

Leland laughed. "I never read the columns."

"Oh." Carolina nodded. Of course he didn't, she reflected, as she found herself improbably liking him even more. "It's only that I haven't been feeling so social," she lied.

"No, I should say not. You look pale, and a little tired. Are you feeling ill? You ought to get your rest. A body needs rest, you know. You ladies work yourselves too hard." The broad, masculine lines of his face softened suddenly in concern. "It was a long trip," he added kindly. There was a quality in his voice that she wished could be produced over and over, and held in a great vat, so that she could dive into it.

"Yes," she seconded, although for her it had not been long enough. "Why are you here?" she went on, knowing that the question sounded neither sophisticated nor polite. But it had just occurred to her that she had made up the guest list, and his was a name she would never have added for Portia Tilt.

"Youngham and I have some business, and he told me to come here to meet him." Leland shrugged, and brushed back his wheat-colored hair. She noted his handsomeness with a certain searing pain. "I wouldn't, ordinarily. You know I have no interest in cards. But I am leaving on a long trip soon, and am short on time."

Carolina looked up at Leland with sad, childlike eyes. "Where are you going?"

"To London first, and then Paris. At the Exposition Universelle in April there are to be many automobile demonstrations and races, and you know of course that I would never miss a thing like that." He grinned widely, and then, when Carolina's lids fluttered shut, he added: "Say, are you quite sure you aren't ill?"

"Yes, I only-"

"Miss Broad!"

The couple who had gotten on so well in Florida looked up from their private moment to see Mrs. Tilt emerge from the more flattering light of the card room. The step she'd taken in their direction had been wobbly, but her tone had been perfectly precise. Carolina had known what it meant-it was the way a high and mighty person spoke to her minions-and she was sure Leland had heard it too.

"Mrs. Tilt," Carolina replied, drawing herself up. She pressed her lips together so that the fine lines of her cheekbones emerged in shadows. Without trying very hard, she soon had a look of haughty carelessness, and then she heard herself go on in the old way. "Thank you so much for a lovely evening, but I fear I am not feeling so well and have lost my appet.i.te for cards. Mr. Bouchard has been so kind as to offer to escort me down and to hail a cab."

Mrs. Tilt's mouth opened up like a capital O, but she was apparently struck dumb, for she said nothing more as Carolina curtsied, took Leland's arm, and descended the stairs at the end of the hall. They paused in the lobby, where Carolina gestured for Mrs. Carr's otter coat, and then she was again out in the cold.

As they waited in silence for a cab to come clomping down the street, Carolina tried desperately to think of something to say or do that would ensure her seeing Leland again. But she had no permanent address, save the one that she had just exited, and no planned social engagements where she might hope to meet him again soon. There was the same strained silence as a cab finally came to a halt and Leland helped her up to the seat.

"I leave Friday, and am afraid I'll have no time to see you before I go. But you'll let me know you're feeling better?"

Carolina moved her head up and down mechanically.

"Send me a telegram at least," he said. He grabbed for her hand and held it, tightly, in his own.

"I will," she promised as she reluctantly released her grip. "Goodbye, Mr. Bouchard."

Then there was the sound of a whip and the horse moved forward into the night. Carolina closed her eyes, and tried to imagine that she was still with Leland and not wrapped up in a stolen coat riding in a cab to which she could give no directions home.

Thirty Six Mr. William Schoonmaker, whose political ambitions are well known, has been in Albany all week, meeting with the governor and shoring up allies, now that he has joined the Family Progress Party. By all accounts, the would-be candidate will return to Manhattan today....

-FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1900 "W OULD YOU LIKE A DRINK, SIR?"

"No."

Henry kept his chin down and his gaze steady as he walked past the waiter and into the second-floor drawing room where his stepmother did much of her entertaining. Louis XIV furniture, which had been oiled that morning between breakfast and luncheon, was arranged with affected carelessness across the deep purple Hamadan carpet. A few of the men and women who fit the elder Mrs. Schoonmaker's idea of "right people" were now talking in imperious tones over very little. They perched on the corners of divans and reclined in bergere chairs, sipping only occasionally from paper-thin china cups. The late-afternoon light streamed through the lace undercurtains, and one could be sure that on the other side of the gla.s.s the parade of carriages down the avenue was moving briskly along.

The skin of Henry's jaw was freshly shaved and tender. He did feel a twinge of regret that he had turned down the drink, for that particular waiter had been attentive to his empty gla.s.ses for many years, perhaps over the objections of Henry's father, and he felt a little disloyal about the rejection. But he was trying to keep himself fit and clear. He had been trying all week, as he awaited the return of the elder Schoonmaker from Albany. He had gone over all the arguments in his head, and he felt ready to present his wish to leave Penelope in a rational and straightforward manner and then let the old man do his worst. And anyway, there would be other drinks and other gla.s.ses-with Diana, he hoped, in some wonderfully unrecognizable future.

His gaze darted across the room, but he didn't see his father anywhere, and eventually he focused on the blue-eyed brunette with the long neck who was sitting on an oval-backed, black velvet settee in a day dress of emerald green satin. Beside her was his stepmother, her blond hair done up and her cheeks pink with all the compliments she liked to receive when there were guests. Both women looked toward Henry, and then Isabelle laughed and turned away.