Rumors

  They had just reached the second-floor landing when she saw her aunt Edith’s head emerge over the rail. “Elizabeth!” she shouted. She held on to the banister, but otherwise her body moved downward at a run. When she came onto Mrs. Holland and Elizabeth, she threw her arms around the younger girl. “How can this be?” she whispered, pulling back. Her cheekbones protruded, shiny and definite from her thinning skin, but she otherwise retained that Holland beauty she had been known for in her youth. Elizabeth looked into the small, round eyes and saw that she was overcome.

  “Perhaps we all should sit somewhere?” Elizabeth suggested, and then the two older women ferried her into the master bedroom. Elizabeth and her aunt went to the armchairs by the fireplace, and Mrs. Holland went to the window, where she pushed back the calico valance and peered down on the street. She continued to fuss with the lace undercurtains as she did.

  Words still had not presented themselves. The Elizabeth whom she’d been taught to be was back with her now, and to such a girl as she had been there was no way to explain what had taken her west. But her aunt was urging her with a look. Her mouth flexed as though she might cry, and there were stars of light reflected in her eyes. The moments stretched out in front of them, and then Elizabeth saw that she would have to be the first to speak. Once she began, she found that she couldn’t stop.

  “I couldn’t marry Henry Schoonmaker. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be married to him and I had to stop it. I love Will, Mother.” Elizabeth looked but saw no change in her mother’s expression. This revelation was apparently too much for Edith, however, who now lowered her eyes. “He had already gone when I realized it. That is, I knew I loved him already, but he was gone when I realized that I couldn’t live without him. That I couldn’t marry Henry. So I followed Will and I found him, in California. He was working in a shipping yard and saving money to lease a piece of land down near Los Angeles. He always works so hard for things, and he had saved a lot. Even from before, from out here in New York. He had a hunch there would be oil there, and now we’ve found it. Will says there’s so much of it we’ll be rich…and then we can help you, Mother. Will wants that too.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth.” Her mother let out a breath that might have sent a hot-air balloon soaring. “I had such hopes for you.”

  “I know.” Elizabeth’s eyes stung, and for the first time that day she found herself unable to look at her mother. She looked around the room, which she had barely entered since her childhood, with its imposing four-poster bed and flocked, wheat-colored wallpaper. The room was not large, and the women were situated close enough to each other that Elizabeth felt their discomfort and confusion almost physically. “I know you did.”

  “It sounds like one of your father’s schemes,” her mother went on dismissively.

  There was the suggestion of a reply on Edith’s lips, but in the end she said nothing.

  Mrs. Holland let go of the valance, and when she spoke, her voice was bitter. “You could have married anyone.”

  “I might have,” Elizabeth carefully corrected her. “But when it came to it, I couldn’t.”

  “I see.” Her mother turned away from the window and looked at her for a long, sad stretch. The dust was streaming down, visible in the light. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she said finally. “To have you back and find that it isn’t you.”

  “But it is me, Mother, and we’re going to be rich again. We all are, because of Will.”

  Mrs. Holland was unmoved by this. She had begun shaking her head back and forth, and her hands were working together nervously. “It’s all too wild, Lizzie. I don’t know where you got the idea that you can just do as you please. Running off. Do you know what you’ve done to this family? Do you know what you’ve done to me?”

  Elizabeth’s voice might have been coming from the other room. “I do know.”

  “Well, you’re not going back to California, not as I live and breathe. You’re not seeing Will Keller again—”

  “Louisa.” Edith could not bring her eyes to meet those of her sister-in-law, but the tone of her voice signified real conviction. “My brother always liked the boy, and anyway, you know nothing good ever comes of separating lovers.”

  Elizabeth was fairly certain the word lover caused as much discomfort to her mother as it did to her. The pause that followed was so long, however, and the change in her mother’s face so significant that she wondered if they hadn’t touched on some corner of family history that she wasn’t privy to.

  “Oh!” her mother said after a time. She put her hands over her face, and her shoulders fell. “Oh, Elizabeth.”

  Meanwhile, downstairs, the Holland house was thrown into movement. Diana was relieved to see that Snowden didn’t seem to have noticed that he had been so calculatedly deceived. “What a miraculous day this is,” he said as Diana descended the stairs from her bedroom, where she had changed from her dressing gown into a skirt patterned with many stripes of horizontal green, and a black chiffon shirtwaist. “How lucky I am to be here for Miss Holland’s return.”

  “And how lucky we are to have you here to celebrate with us,” Diana said. She was still feeling a little guilty over her falsehood, and so was trying to be especially respectful of him. “It wouldn’t have been much of a celebration without you,” she added, truthfully, since his entourage had made itself busy carting in the necessary foodstuffs for a proper Christmas feast. They were all over the house, shaking out old linens and polishing what silver was left. They crisscrossed the floors with new candelabras and vases and chair cushions.

  “Since your mother and sister are busy, perhaps you could consult on the dinner menu with Miss Broud and me before it is finalized?” He paused and gave her a shy smile. “As long as we’re waiting for the others for luncheon.”

  “Of course, Mr. Cairns—” Diana broke off when she saw a figure through the door glass. Her body grew buoyant and inclined in his direction when she realized who it was. “Mr. Cairns, would you excuse me just one moment?”

  “Of course.”

  Diana walked quickly to the door and went out onto the enclosed filigreed-iron porch where Henry stood, three steps up from the street, in a black coat and hat. She pulled the door behind her, but when she looked back, she saw that Snowden had not moved from the place in the middle of the foyer.

  “We’re being watched, Henry.” She tried to speak with composure and not to smile too much. The air came right through her thin shirt and chilled her skin. “So don’t do anything rash,” she added with a wink, and so playfully that she might almost have been encouraging the opposite.

  “I have to talk to you,” he said. He was looking at her intensely, and his eyes were round with feeling. They were worried, sleepless eyes. She had found their separation to be so agonizing that it was almost a physical affliction, but now she saw that for Henry it had been much worse. She had heard that lack of gratification could be very hard on men, and she supposed that explained the difference.

  “I can’t now, Henry,” she replied. She felt naughty, just standing with him this way in public, and she thought that she could hear his pulse even with so much space between them. It was getting harder by the second, standing right in front of him and not reaching out to touch his face. “There’s such news, and the house is full of activity. I will be missed now.”

  “But Diana—” Henry took a step toward her, and she almost moved in to kiss him despite everything. But Snowden was still there in the hall—she could feel his eyes on them. She knew that she would betray herself some way if she went on talking to Henry, so she stepped away and put her hand on the door handle.

  “Henry, come later. Come tonight. But if you stay now, you will only get me in trouble!” she hissed. Then she drew back the door, so that he would be unable to say more. He did go on looking at her, however, his dark eyes searching her with so much desire that she felt a little weak. That look made her feel so delightful that she couldn’t help but hold it a few seconds too long, before she stepped up
and back into the house, ready to deceive Snowden a little more.

  Several hours and a lot of talk later, Elizabeth emerged from Mrs. Holland’s bedroom and saw that Will was waiting for her. Not in a place where he might have heard the conversation, but near her bedroom, so that she would know he was there when the discussion was over. They met in the middle of the hallway, where she took his hand and brought him into the servants’ stairs. It was all darkness there, and the ceiling was low. This was the path she had always taken to visit him, when desire had first begun to outweigh consequences, and before any decisions had to be made.

  “What did she say to you?” Will asked finally.

  “She gave us her blessing.” Elizabeth’s breath was broken, short, and loud in her own ears. There was so much relief to be found in seeing her mother alive, in seeing the family provided for by some act of providence, but she had also found it exhausting being so truthful in this house where she had once lied so impeccably. What she and Will did next was going to be real in a way it hadn’t been before, because she had proclaimed her intentions out loud. She pressed her forehead against his.

  “Oh.” Will’s tone was as full of gratitude as if he had used actual words of thanks.

  “Yes.” She was becoming aware of the salty liquid from her eyes and from her nose, collecting above her top lip. “She gave two conditions. The first was that we were to be married.”

  Will pulled her tighter. She felt almost crushed against him, which was just as she wanted it.

  “The second was that we leave. She said that if anyone found out, that would be the end of the family forever. Maybe she’ll come visit us, she said. But we can’t stay here.”

  Their breathing was slow and their inhalations came at the same time. There was the creak of feet falling on the main stairs, and the sound of instructions being given down in the kitchen. “What do you think?”

  “I think,” she said, pressing her lids down hard against each other, “that you need to go buy a suit to be married in.”

  Downstairs, Claire was already giving directions for how to set the table and making lists of what was still needed for a proper Christmas dinner. Later, when the late part of the afternoon began to fade into evening, there would be young turkey with chestnut sauce and potatoes whipped with cream and champagne punch. There would be gifts and toasts and prayers. But for now, Elizabeth wanted nothing but to stay in the dark and be held just as she was.

  Thirty Nine

  It is by now well known that William S. Schoonmaker wants to run for mayor, although he has thus far based his candidacy on little more than the unfortunate loss of his only son’s fiancée. The young man has lately been seen out again and dancing with young ladies, however, prompting rumors of new attachments. If his first fiancée is in fact alive, as the appearance of her engagement ring might indicate, will young Schoonmaker renew his suit? Surely the would-be mayor could put quite a bounty on the head of her supposed captors….

  —FROM THE FIRST PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE, DECEMBER 26, 1899

  “I’D LIKE A DOZEN WHITE ROSES, A DOZEN WHITE freesias, a bunch of baby’s breath….” Diana Holland paused and frowned. She hadn’t made a list, and she was now forgetting all of the things that her sister had asked her to order.

  Yesterday, after her brief encounter with Henry, she’d run upstairs for a private moment in her room. That was when she came upon Elizabeth and Will embracing, and she learned their good news. She’d been so swept up in the general exhilaration of love—hers and Henry’s, Liz and Will’s—that she’d volunteered to go to the florist herself when her sister told her the list of things to be done. This was, after all, far preferable to remaining in the house and being “nice” to Snowden. Here she was free to imagine the flowers she’d one day pick out for her and Henry.

  He hadn’t come to her last night, but even seeing him on the porch had been enough to consume her thoughts and destroy her concentration. Landry the florist smiled at her from the other side of the marble counter in his Broadway shop; as he had already told her, it was not a busy day for flowers. “Oh! And lilies of the valley! Do you have any of those…?”

  “Sounds like a wedding.”

  Diana looked up and into the mirror behind the register. The place was all mirrors where it wasn’t white porcelain tile. She looked into the inquiring eyes of the gossip columnist for a few uncertain seconds, and then she turned so that Mr. Landry wouldn’t note the playful nature of her smile. “Mr. Barnard, are you following me?”

  “Not at all,” he answered in a tone that left her entirely in doubt.

  “Well, nor are these flowers for a wedding,” she shot back blithely. “We always celebrate a white Christmas at the Holland house. You can print that if you like.”

  Then she turned back to Mr. Landry and asked if she could pick up her order on Thursday morning.

  “Weren’t you here to get flowers, Mr. Barnard?” she asked as he moved to follow her back onto the street.

  “I found my daily requirement for visual beauty has unexpectedly been filled by a different source,” he replied, holding the door for her.

  Outside the sun was shining, which did nothing to mitigate the icy cut of the wind. Dead leaves reeled in the air and skittered across the sidewalk as Diana brought her camel coat in closer to her chest. “That’s quite a dose of flattery. Pretty soon I’ll have to start wondering if you don’t have an angle.”

  “I hope you won’t think me somehow not in earnest about your beauty if I do.”

  “Ah, well, that I can’t tell you.” Diana ducked her head so that the brim of her bonnet covered her face. “Some things must remain a mystery, and for now, I think I’ll keep my opinion of you and your compliments to myself.”

  “I’ll have to look forward to that another day, then. Though I do of course have an angle.” He pushed his hat back on his head and arched a dark brow.

  “Of course you do!” They were walking up Broadway, and though the cold was biting at her, Diana felt a peculiar elation at being again in the gossip columnist’s company. Perhaps it was knowing that she held a few secrets greater than he could imagine, secrets she could never reveal to him. He walked along on her left, so that he shielded her from the view of anyone passing in the street, and he was looking at her in that way that made her feel as though he might have noticed some attractive quality of hers that had escaped even her own notice. Of course, she glowed whenever she thought of Henry, and Henry was always in her thoughts. “Well, do share.”

  “The public is hungry for news about you, Miss Diana,” he went on in a voice that didn’t quite touch down on seriousness. “Can’t you tell us something? Perhaps there’s wedding news? Or maybe something about this Snowden Cairns fellow.”

  “He is not a beau, if you’re wondering that,” Diana answered quickly, remembering how poorly the last report of her possible attachment had gone over.

  “No? Hmmm…and your Christmas dinner?”

  “Oh,” Diana replied gaily. They were moving forward, up the avenue, at a good pace now. “We had turkey with cranberries and asparagus points on toast and hothouse lettuce with mayonnaise and, later, plum pudding!”

  “Don’t tease me, Diana. I meant, were there any special guests? Perhaps one with the first initial E.?”

  Diana smiled her elusive little smile. She was surprised to find within herself a small inclination to tell him, although she wasn’t certain if it was because she wanted the record set straight, or because she enjoyed telling her own story, or if it was simply that she liked manipulating what the papers printed. “I really don’t know what you mean” was her eventual reply.

  He sighed. She had never seen him disappointed, and it only made her wish she could tell him more. But he was looking away from her now. He was trying to get a cigarette going even as he walked into the wind.

  “Are there really no other stories for you to write?” Diana affected a sympathetic face.

  “There are,” h
e said, his eyes meeting hers in a passing moment. The cigarette was evidently lit, and he exhaled a cloud of smoke. “But I just don’t want to pursue either of them.”

  “And why not?” The rhythm in Diana’s chest had slowed to an occasional thud. Was it possible that Davis Barnard was jealous over her? Because he had heard that Henry was in love with her and that perhaps there was a wedding on the way? It was a little wild, Diana had to admit to herself, that news would have traveled so quickly, but he had, after all, been prodding her about a wedding, and it would maybe explain Henry’s keeping himself scarce on Christmas Eve….

  “Because they are neither of them are very good for the Hollands, and, as you know, I never want to write anything that might hurt your family.” They had come to East Twentieth Street, and Diana looked to see if his face didn’t betray some of his meaning. She had to turn there—she was almost home. “The first is about Elizabeth; that’s why I was asking about her. Seems her engagement ring turned up in a pawnshop out west and now everyone is speculating if she isn’t alive somewhere.”

  Diana’s heart sped, and she gave a loud laugh that she hoped distracted from the color going out of her face. “Surely I’d know if that were true,” she shot back, without the slightest idea whether she was convincing or not.

  “It would be a wonderful thing of course…” Davis said earnestly. “Although the pawnshop isn’t a very nice element of the whole story. People wonder, if she is alive, what sort of ordeal she’s been through. I know it would be devastating to get your hopes up and then find out that she’s still dead.”

  “Yes.” There were few people on the street, all of them too cold to observe what passed between a young lady from a good family and a newspaper writer on a Broadway street corner. All of the sudden, Diana wished to be home already. “I suppose Tiffany makes a lot of rings.”