Envy - Anna Godbersen

“Are you tired, my dear?” Snowden asked.

“Yes, very,” she replied.

“Come, I will show you to bed.” Snowden stood but held on to her hand, so that it lifted up off her lap and into the air.

Elizabeth’s wide-set brown eyes opened in bewilderment. For a moment, she feared that their domestic arrangement had been terribly misunderstood, and she brought her other hand up over her heart protectively.

“I thought we might—”

“To your bed, my dear. My bed will be down the hall.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth showed him a relieved smile as she rose to stand beside him. She felt a little silly for making trouble where there was none, and so she reached for his hands again and said, in her warmest tone, “Thank you, Mr. Cairns.”

“Do not think of it.”

Then he led her down the hall, with its new parquet floors and high picture moldings, and at the door to the room where she would now end all her days, he paused to kiss her lightly on the forehead. She could almost feel her head against the pillow and sleep coming over her. Then she would dream of Will and their child, and for a few hours they would all three be together.

“Good night,” she said as she placed her hand on the knob.

“Good night,” Snowden said, turning to leave her. “Good night, Mrs. Cairns.”

Forty Seven

We applaud Mr. Edward Cutting’s heroic move to join the army and serve his country abroad. Will other blue bloods follow? We can only hope this is the case. It would be a small step to right the inequalities of our great nation.

— FROM THE EDITORIAL PAGE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 1900

THE SCHOONMAKER MANSION FELT VERY MUCH LIKE home to Penelope that morning, and she moved through its halls with a certain swishing, imperious air that might have intimidated several of the crowned heads of Europe. She was holding a dainty china coffee cup aloft and pulling her vermilion skirt up from the floor. There was much to do that day. She would have to pick an appropriate wedding gift for her husband’s former fiancée, to begin with — and what did one get a girl in a situation like that? Penelope’s summer wardrobe had not yet been completely settled upon, and there were so many events in the coming weeks, several of which overlapped, that she would have to consider. Behind every door there was a difficult choice, but she was feeling very light and a little naughty, and she trusted herself utterly to make the right decisions. She very nearly buzzed with energy.

“Henry,” she called as she came into their suite. The bed had been made while she was having her hair arranged and picking at a croissant, and now the room appeared in its full, smoothed over, white and gold glory. She smiled, because everything was in its place. Of course Henry was not there. She had gone to bed without him again; no doubt he had stayed up late drinking, as he had the previous days, and was still now asleep on the couch in the adjoining room. By the time she had left the party three nights before, she was the lone guest still possessed of a clear head, and so she’d been the only one to notice and interpret Henry’s return from an odd ramble, and later Grayson, and then Diana, both of them with their attire somewhat wrinkled and askew. She could only imagine what Henry had seen, and she did try to do that. After all, it was only a matter of time before he sobered up to his situation and realized it was actually a quite pleasurable one.

She sipped her coffee contentedly as she considered the spoils of her planning and scheming. It had all come off just right in the end, she thought with a smile. Of course, the pampering she was now receiving from the Schoonmaker staff was based on an inconvenient misunderstanding that would have to be cleared up sooner or later. Now that Henry knew Diana had been tainted forever, he would come back around, and her predicament could be easily remedied, although Penelope knew that she didn’t want to start making grandchildren for old Schoonmaker. Not right away. It was her first season as a married society lady, after all, and there were new clothes to be shown off and so many gatherings to attend, and she didn’t want to grow fat and immobile just yet. It was a hand she had not yet figured out how to play. But all the cards were right, and she knew she would. The old her was back.

She smiled a little at the thought that soon Elizabeth would be unable to do anything fun, for surely her quick wedding confirmed what Penelope had suspected in Florida — that Elizabeth was going to have a child, and sooner than anybody had any right to expect.

“Henry?” she called again. She put her china cup down on the little carved table at the end of her bed and brushed past the various trunks that had arrived that morning via steamer — for she was not totally unprepared for the coming season — and stepped up into the adjoining room.

She was dismayed by the darkness within, and realized in a few seconds that the curtains had not been opened.

“Henry?” she said again as she went over to draw them back. Light flooded the room, illuminating the couch with its kilim pillows and soft leather cushions and the silly idyllic mural overhead. That was the place where Henry was supposed to be, and her head ticked to the side to see things out of order. She went over and brushed her hands across the cushions, as though that might give some indication of where he was at an hour of the day that was much too late for him to be carousing, but still early, for him, to be out in the world.

“Yes, Penelope?”

She turned around and put her hands behind her back as though she had something to hide. Her husband had come up through the bedroom, and he was now standing on the threshold staring at her.

“I was just…” But Penelope couldn’t finish the sentence. She was too distracted by Henry’s outfit, which was unlike anything he’d ever worn before. “Where did you get that?”

“This?” He looked down at the fitted navy coat with the brass buttons and the light blue trousers that were brought even closer to his legs by leather gaiters. The sight of Henry in uniform made her heart speed up a little, and she found herself staring into his eyes and moving toward him. He was holding a hat with two peaks in his hands, and he looked good enough to eat, though his gaze was as steady and uninviting as ever. “From the United States Army, to which I now belong.”

For a moment this notion seemed to Penelope terribly romantic, and her mind wandered to all the things a man shipping off might ask for. She smiled hazily and clamped a hand on her hip. Then she looked at Henry’s posture and knew he was not dressed up for her personal amusement. Her hand and face fell, and she moved toward him more quickly this time.

“I am shipping out today.”

A fearful urgency surged within her. “Shipping where?”

“I don’t know.” He cleared his throat. “Teddy has departed for the Philippines. I am not sure where they’ll have me stationed.”

It was just beginning to sink in that she had done something to prevent his ever leaving, and that he had countered by finding another route out of town. “You aren’t actually leaving New York?”

“I am going to serve my country, Penelope.” He sighed and looked away from her. There had been fight in his eyes for a minute, but it was gone now. “It will be in the paper tomorrow, but I thought I should tell you myself. I’ve caused everyone enough harm, Lord knows, and I wouldn’t want to cause any more.”

Her whole body was ticking with energy, and her mind had already traveled from what the columns would make of it, to what Henry’s father would think of her now, to the desolate feeling that was sure to settle in at the pit of her stomach when he was really, truly gone. He stepped back down into the main room. She couldn’t stand the idea of this departure, and hurled herself forward so that she fell at the feet of her husband. She would rather have him there to spar and bicker with, she would rather have him in the city doing unkind things than to lose him this way, to some foreign location. Her knees were on the floor — she could feel the unyielding wood, even through her skirt — and she reached for Henry’s legs. Her arms, which were encased in a crepe de chine of a slightly deeper shade of red, not to mention a collection of gold bangles, clung to him then. He was still stepping backward, and as he did so he dragged her some inches.

She looked up at him and found that wetness had quite naturally flooded her eyes. “What about the baby?” she cried. She knew she was being ridiculous, but it was all she could think to say.

Henry bent and put his hands firmly under her armpits and pulled her up to her feet. “There is no baby,” he said when they were again at each other’s eye level.

“But—”

“I wish all the best for you, my dear,” Henry said in a way that made Penelope feel she’d been boxed and stored in some back closet of his life. She could feel the seconds slipping away, and knew that she had precious few to figure out a way to prevent his leaving.

“But Henry.”

He let his dark eyes linger on her one second longer, and then he put the hat on his head. He was only a few feet from the door, and Penelope rushed toward the bed, pulling back her skirts from her feet but not caring particularly if she ripped them. She hit the blankets wailing.

“Henry, Henry, Henry, don’t leave!” The tears had become a hot torrent now, and her whole torso shook with the terrible fate of being abandoned in Henry’s house alone. “I’m nothing without you!”

It was true, she realized just after she’d said it. She balled up her fists and pounded them against the gold-embroidered bedspread, but minutes passed to no avail. When she did look up, Henry was gone. He had been gone a long time.

She sniffled and blew her nose into her sleeve, not caring if she ruined it. Tomorrow she would order another one made. She pushed herself up on her elbow, and tried to dry her cheekbones with the heel of her palm. Eventually her chest stopped heaving, and she began to slowly regain normal breath.

“Oh, Henry,” she said quietly to herself.

Outside, the rain, which had been interminable for two days, was beginning to weaken, and she knew that if she got up, and put her face back together, that she would be able to see her situation anew. She couldn’t stop him now; for now, he was gone. But there was tomorrow, and the day following, and forever after that. She stood and called for her maid. She was no one’s fool, and she had plenty of time to figure out how to get him back.

Forty Eight

Please read all of it.

— H. S.

THE LETTER ARRIVED IN THE AFTERNOON WHEN the rain was still strong, and the messenger had gotten drenched. Diana had looked at the thing fearfully as it sat on the ceramic platter by the door, for she had become certain that Henry had seen what she had done, and that he’d written down his invective toward her. It was only after dinner, when everyone else was asleep — somehow, superstitiously, that made Diana feel that her thoughts were less likely to be read — that she went to fetch it. She wasn’t yet sure if she would be able to consume his message in its entirety.