Envy (24 page)

T
HE FIRE SNAPPED, AND ELIZABETH’S BROWN EYES
twitched upward to meet her mother’s. Neither woman flinched, and they went on staring at each other for a long minute. The rain was again falling outside after clearing for a time that afternoon, and Diana was still asleep upstairs despite the fact that the evening was nearly upon them. Edith had the look of death about her, and could form no words about the party at the Hayeses’ the previous night. So they had run out of things to talk about, and now the elder of the Miss Hollands could do nothing but try to keep warm by the fire and suffer her mother’s accusatory glances. She felt a little nervous and unsure of the future, but now she had something greater than herself to protect, and it made her feel less frightened.

“Mrs. Holland,” Claire said, adjusting the pocket door as she came through it. The shadows of a gray day played across her milky face.

Edith made a grunting noise and covered her eyes. “For
God’s sake, be mindful of my headache and keep a little quiet,” she said, even though Claire had most certainly spoken in a quiet tone to begin with.

“I’m sorry,” Claire whispered. Since Mrs. Holland steadfastly refused to look up from the hearth, the maid glanced at Elizabeth, who nodded for her to go on. “There’s a guest here.”

“Who is it? We’re in no state to receive anyone,” Mrs. Holland went on sharply. Edith groaned, but did not mention her headache again.

“It’s Mr. Cairns.”

“Ah!” Mrs. Holland’s expression changed. “Show him in.”

Elizabeth straightened as he entered the room. She had been so absorbed in her own troubles that she had not noticed the outdoorsman’s absence since her return from Florida, and indeed his thick features, and the extreme paleness of his blond hair, were almost unfamiliar to her. She felt a little bad about this, because he had done so much for her family, and she tried to smile more broadly at him to make up for it.

“Mrs. Holland, Miss Holland, Miss Elizabeth,” he said and bobbed his head.

“How lovely that you’ve returned to the city,” said Mrs. Holland as she rose from her chair. She looked less worried somehow, and Elizabeth felt grateful to him for it. Her father’s old associate had such a knack for showing up when
the family was in the greatest need, she observed, and that made him seem not so strange to her. “I wasn’t sure you’d be back.”

“Yes, and I plan to stay awhile. I know how compulsively hospitable your family is, and I didn’t want to disturb you until I had settled in. I have taken an apartment at the Dover on the park—it is not as charming as all this, of course, but it will do for a man like me.” His gaze was steady on Elizabeth, who turned to her mother, who looked at Snowden. “I received your cable,” he added, addressing her mother, Elizabeth assumed, although he went on watching her.

“Welcome back to New York, Mr. Cairns,” Elizabeth said sweetly as she stood, touching her belly unconsciously as she did. She hoped that that was all that was required of her in the moment, but she was not to be so lucky. His gaze covered her whole body, and then he crossed toward her and sank on one knee.

Elizabeth’s eyes darted to her mother, but that lady was facing elsewhere now.

“Elizabeth, I hope you don’t think it is overly forward of me to say that I know of your situation and that I feel I can be of service to you. I know how you loved Will—after all, it was I who married you. Of course you must have his child. But you will do that child, and the late Mr. Keller, a disservice if you bring it into the world outside of the traditional covenant
of marriage. I know you do not love me, at least not as a wife loves a husband, and I do not expect you to try.” He paused, to adjust his knee’s position on the floor, and looked up at her cautiously, as though his words might unintentionally do her harm. “I want to settle here in the city, and have a home. I think that if we wed, we could form a family of a kind—I could offer you protection from the world’s censure, and you would make this city a happy place for me….”

He trailed off, and Elizabeth closed her eyes. For a moment, the room was quiet and there was only the sound of the flames snapping and, outside, the rain against the pavement. Then he spoke again. “Will you marry me?”

Her mother had raised her to be such a marriageable girl, and so she had seen not a few men on their knees before. It was a bizarre twist that this man—perfectly acceptable, but hardly the social ally a debutante should seek out—was to be her husband in the end. Elizabeth knew Mrs. Holland would have preferred Teddy Cutting, though not as much as Elizabeth herself would have. But Teddy was nowhere in sight.

The full meaning of Snowden’s offer swept over her slowly, and when she realized everything it would mean to her, and what a sacrifice it was for him—for he would give up any chance of finding true love himself, to protect her and Will’s unborn child—she reached out for his hand.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

When she opened her eyes again, he stood and, still holding on to one hand, kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I will give you a good home, Elizabeth.”

She could not quite bring herself to smile, but she did nod. Then her mother came over to them and put her hands over their hands.

“Mr. Cairns,” she said. Her dark eyes flicked rapidly as she stared at him. “You must take good care of my child. She is everything I live for.”

Then she embraced him. Edith had come across the room, and though her headache was still obvious in her face, she tried to smile a little. She put her arms around the young couple-to-be and whispered her congratulations.

“I remind you that I knew Mr. Holland not a little,” Mr. Cairns said to none of them in particular. “And I know how he would want me to treat you right.”

Elizabeth nodded again. The world was such a marvel—it gave you trials, but if you were still and concentrated, if you tried to do the right thing, it always provided you with salvation. She had imagined that a solution lay in one direction, but that didn’t matter now, for the road to there hadn’t yet been built. It was not to be. This was to be, and it was just as well. She was going to be a mother—the thought suffused her with joy.

“I think you will agree with me that it must be done
quickly, to avoid suspicion, and that in fact we should move as soon as possible….” Snowden was saying to Mrs. Holland, or maybe Aunt Edith—Elizabeth wasn’t paying attention anymore; she was thinking of Will, of his honorable nature and his willingness to work hard and everything he had done for her, and how perhaps she would finally be able to do right by him.

W
HEN THEY RETURNED FROM THE CHURCH,
Diana wanted nothing more than to go up to her room. The ceremony had been short and dour and there had been no guests outside of their little family and a few members of Snowden’s retinue. Reverend Needlehouse had officiated, glancing occasionally over at the bride’s sister as if she had a bad smell about her. Afterward the bride and groom had gone to their new apartment house, and the Holland family had returned to their home on Gramercy Park, and Diana was once again the lone sister in a sad home. She put her foot on the stair, but before she could return to her own private anguish, her mother blocked her path.

“Di, your sister is very lucky.”

Diana looked back at her mother, still dressed in black as she had been for over a year now. The youngest Holland’s clothing—a navy wool dress in a modest cut—was not much less somber, and she would have been at pains to declare which of them was the gloomier.

“I know,” she said after a moment.

When her sister had revealed to her the secret she had been bearing in silence all these weeks, a stone had flipped over inside Diana and all the vague disquietude she had been experiencing over the thing she had done with Grayson, in one of his family’s galleries, showed its full, mossy form in the light. For she had committed an act that could have terrible and unexpected consequences, and the knowledge dragged her further down.

“If it is true what I read in the papers—that Grayson Hayes has taken a special interest in you—then that would be very good,” her mother concluded, and then Diana knew that her mother was disappointed by the marriage that had just taken place. For while it would smooth appearances and allow Elizabeth to have her child, it was not the glorious match that Mrs. Holland had so clearly hoped for. “I have not always approved of the Hayes family, as you know, and there might be other suitors whom I would prefer for you. But their fortune is large, and though it pains me to say so, they are the future.”

There was no way for Diana to respond to this without telling her everything; and of course that she could never do. So, wincing, she nodded her understanding, and then she went up the dark, paneled staircase, which heaved a little under her weight. The whole house was showing its age. Or its youngest
member, at least, was feeling a hundred years older than she had on her return from Florida, and it was with weariness commensurate with this feeling that she drooped into her own bed. What else would she have to go through, she wondered, to fill up the pages of the story of her life? That volume was already very crammed.

The physical act that had joined her and Grayson was not so different from what she and Henry had shared, all those months ago, and yet she felt so different this time. After Henry there had been a wonderful, peach-colored halo all around her body; now she felt sodden with regret. Every time she closed her eyes she was forced to relive those heated moments with Grayson, and the memory scorched her. There was that ghost of Henry in the door in all her recollections, and it hardly mattered whether it had been a real or imaginary witness to her transgression. What she had done had not been for love, and that was all the difference.

No matter what her mother said, she knew she would never marry Grayson. He had told her that he loved her, and for all she knew it might be true. But she could not return the sentiment—she had never felt so little doubt about anything—and that meant she was very tawdry indeed. She had just watched her sister promise herself to a man whom she did not love, and while the expression on her face had been muted, Diana had seen clearly how much it pained her to marry
again, so soon, when her love for Will had been so pure and was still so recent and alive inside her.

Diana brought her knees up to her chest and made herself into a ball on her bed. It was there in that room, with the salmon damask walls, the white bearskin rug, the old gold-upholstered wing chair, that Henry had come to her that first time. They had lain together on that rug, over by the small tin-covered fireplace. She would have given anything to return to that moment in time, before she discovered that Henry was not what he had seemed to be, and what gross errors she was capable of. She was exhausted by all she had done, but she could not cry. There was no changing any of it—it was an inescapable part of her now.

She had gotten what she wanted, although not in the way she had imagined. She had wanted to feel different, and indeed she did now—she felt worse. She was older, and she had lost a good deal of innocence, but if she had believed that Grayson could make her stop thinking about Henry, she had been outrageously mistaken. Henry had taken up permanent residence in her mind, and for the first time what he had done to her no longer seemed so terrible, for she had done exactly the same right back to him, and now knew how thin the rewards were.

T
HE DOVER WAS A CREAM-COLORED BUILDING OFF
the park in the mid-seventies, and its apartments contained parlors and libraries and maid’s quarters. There were elevators and laundry chutes on every floor, and the whole place gleamed with its brand-new modernity. The Cairnses’ unit took up the whole fourth floor, and to its new mistress it looked very strange. The furniture had never been used, by her or by anybody, and it appeared to have been arranged with more practicality than art. Everything looked expensive, and yet there seemed to be not nearly enough objects.

“What a beautiful place,” Elizabeth said as she came through the door.

Snowden smiled at her, and held out his hand for her cape. One of his men had made a fire in the fireplace, and her husband gestured for her to sit near it. The rain had continued on, and now that everyone knew under whose protection her child would be born, their attention had shifted to Elizabeth keeping healthy and not moving about too much.

They had gone together as a family to the church, and then, in case there were any watchful eyes looking to see if there wasn’t more to this match than the papers were reporting, Elizabeth and Snowden had returned home alone just like any married couple. “No one ever thought a Holland would live that far north,” her mother had said obliquely when they parted.

Elizabeth had never been so tired. It was that exhaustion that comes only after a prolonged and terrible worry has been put to bed. But she was far too weary to parse her mother’s choice of words, and after a moment she followed Snowden’s gesture and went to the white muslin–upholstered Eastlake sofa and sat down. It was soft but a little boxy, and she wasn’t sure quite how to sit on it. Tomorrow she would make this place look more like home, and on every following day, until her child was born. But there was no need to worry about all that just yet.

Snowden was still standing in the entryway in his dark brown suit, which he had bought earlier that same day at Lord & Taylor, the department store. Elizabeth’s simple ivory dress had been purchased there as well. It had a mandarin collar and sleeves that were full almost to the wrist, and it had been ready-to-wear and not crafted especially for her. There had been something discomfiting about all this, and she realized during the exchanging of vows that this was because it was all so similar to her and Will’s wedding day, and that in fact
the suit that Will had worn was strangely like the one that Snowden had chosen.

“What are you thinking, my dear?” her husband asked from the shadows.

“Oh,” Elizabeth sighed. She took a quick breath and attempted a smile. Then she moved forward on the seat and shrugged. “It’s only…” Perhaps it was the fatigue, but Elizabeth suddenly feared she might cry. That seemed awfully ungrateful after everything that Snowden had done for her, and she frowned, trying to will away tears.

“Go on,” Snowden said gently. “You can tell me. There’s nothing you can say that would bother me.”

She closed her eyes. “I was just thinking that until this evening I was Mrs. Keller,” she whispered.

Snowden came over and sat down beside her on the sofa. She looked at him a little reluctantly, and then when she saw that his expression was a kind one she sighed, and fluttered her hands, as though to say it was all just ridiculous sentimentality, even though that couldn’t be further from her true feelings.

“Of course.” Snowden smiled at her. “I know you will always be Mrs. Keller in your heart.”

“You were only being kind,” Elizabeth replied remorsefully.

A maid was hovering in the doorway, and Snowden gestured for her to enter. She came over to the little geometric
oak table in front of the pair and poured them each a glass of red wine. Snowden waited until the woman in the black-and-white uniform had disappeared, and then he raised his glass. Elizabeth blinked and picked hers up too. Their glasses met, and then she tried to take a polite sip, although in truth she had no taste for alcohol just then.

“To our family,” Snowden said before he drank.

Elizabeth smiled and placed her wineglass back on the table by the stem. Then something else occurred to her.

“I suppose I am legally married twice now.” She said it almost as she thought it, and without concern for how it would sound to Snowden. Then she looked at her new husband, and saw something strange behind his eyes. “I am—aren’t I?”

A terrible silence followed, and at the end of it, Elizabeth knew that the next sentence she heard was going to be a lie.

“Yes.” Snowden faltered a bit on the first word, but by the second he was speaking smoothly and assuredly again: “Of course you are, but since the paperwork for the first marriage was filed in Boston, and since there are sure to be more than a few Elizabeth Hollands and Will Kellers in this world, I am sure that there is nothing to worry about.”

Then he smiled and cupped his hands over hers, where she had placed them primly on her lap. She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t nearly so worried about being found out as she
was about honoring the memory of Will. The peculiarity of that moment stayed with her, though, and try as she might, she could not stop herself from feeling unnerved. But then she closed her eyes and told herself that she was married to someone else now, and perhaps Will’s memory was something she would have to nurture in secret, and there would always be strange moments between people that never need be explained.

“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.”