Anna Godbersen - Envy

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 hello.

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 circumstances, 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 appetite 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.

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

“WOULD 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 bergère 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 glass 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 glasses 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 glasses — 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.

Penelope, however, went on watching Henry as he moved through the little tables and marble statuary that filled the room. He passed Adelaide Wetmore and Lydia Vreewold, ensconced in conversation, and the painter Lispenard Bradley, who appeared to be waiting for a vacancy beside Mrs. Schoonmaker. Once Henry had drawn close, Penelope turned a bright, counterfeit smile back on him.

“Have you missed me terribly?” she said loud enough for several known gossips to hear.

The bodice of Penelope’s dress was braided and layered, and the effect was something like armor. Despite the abundant fabric, there was an angular quality to it. There seemed to be nothing capable of movement underneath the fitted satin, and Henry wondered not for the first time if her blood ran red or black. The answer didn’t matter to him anymore.

“No,” he said finally.

Penelope’s long black lashes batted back just an eighth of an inch. She pressed her oversize lips together and let the perfect oval of her face assume an implacable expression. If she felt embarrassment, she was trying awfully hard to make sure no one else noticed it.

“I was looking for my father. Is he here, Isabelle?”

Isabelle, who had been engaged in a silent exchange with Bradley, showed Henry an innocent face that betrayed just how carefully she had been monitoring the words between her stepson and daughter-in-law. “No,” she said eventually. “He went to the club, but we expect him for dinner at the Hayeses’ tonight. You can talk to him there, later. But do stay now, Henry — you are never any help when we have good people over.”

The glow coming through the windows was fading slowly to evening light, and the colors that women wore during the day began to appear garish. Already Isabelle was thinking of the next gown she would wear, he knew, although, as usual, she would not want to part with those who had kept her company during the day. She collected furniture, but somewhat indifferently — her real passion was for collecting people.

“I don’t feel so much like socializing now,” Henry replied curtly. “There’s something that I need to discuss with the old man — it’s important, and I won’t be much fun until we’ve had our talk.”

He nodded his goodbye, and moved to leave the drawing room. He’d nearly reached the door when he realized that his wife had matched his every step. All the heads in the room twisted so as to better observe her, and when Henry fully comprehended that the attention of the assembled was on them, he paused and tried to appear a little normal.

“What is it you want to talk to your father about?” she asked in a low voice.

Henry’s eyes went everywhere — to alabaster torchères and angels carved out of wood, to the postures of people who were trying not to seem to spy, to anything but her. “I’d really rather not—”

“If it’s about me, I hope you’d have the courage to say it to my face.”

Henry’s hands moved awkwardly across his black jacket and he sighed.

Penelope’s eyes brightened with a prideful gleam. “Here it is,” she replied, extending her neck so that her head came closer to his. Though her tone was sweet, there was a challenge in it, too.

The Schoonmaker guests had gone back to their little talks and were at least keeping up the illusion that they had no interest in the newlyweds by the mahogany doorframe. He had told her once before: He didn’t know why he was finding it so difficult to muster the words now. Maybe she seemed a more pitiable figure to him after everything.

“Is this about that nonsense you were babbling about in Florida?” She laughed, as at a very urbane joke. There must have been something in his countenance that affirmed this, because she went on: “What would people say, Henry. It would be so awfully irregular.” She brought a gloved hand up to cover her mouth and laughed again, this time in a more quiet, simmering way. “Would you like to know what I think? I think you don’t have the guts to tell your father.”