Anna Godbersen: Rumors

“Penelope,” her father put in sternly, “we haven’t a place reserved, or a minister. We haven’t asked anyone to save the date.”

“But you’re Richmond Hayes! You can get a minister, and everyone will want to come to my wedding. And anyway, Mrs. Schoonmaker already said that we could use their place at Tuxedo to have a party to really celebrate the engagement. Why not just make it the wedding? We’ll have the invitations handwritten tonight and sent out tomorrow! Oh, please, Daddy!”

Her parents appeared too stunned to deny or affirm her request. They looked at each other a little nervously across the gold tea service. It was Grayson who spoke first, and he now spoke in a reasonable tone devoid of irony. “Why not? It will be such a surprise, and that will create envy and excitement, and everyone will be falling all over themselves to make sure they are invited. It will remind all society what this family has become, and what sort of displays we’re now capable of. I think old Schoonmaker will like the idea too. Did you see that bit on him in the paper today? Seems he passed out some bad turkeys at that parade of his, and a few slum girls have fallen ill.” Grayson chuckled and lit another cigarette. “That’s the kind of tragedy that begs for a distraction,” he declared in his father’s direction.

“But what will you wear?” Mrs. Hayes asked, her round face still open with confusion.

“I’ve always wanted to wear your dress,” Penelope lied sweetly. “We can have it made over so that it fits me in a few days.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Hayes smiled a little at this. “Well, why not? Don’t you think, Mr. Hayes, that this might be the best thing?”

“If it’s a surprise, and out of town,” Penelope went on, assuming correctly that if she kept talking, her father would lose the conviction behind any of his objections and grow bored with the whole back-and-forth, “then there won’t be all those unpleasant crowds and police barricades. There won’t be endless newspaper articles for months before, about all the bridesmaids and what shade they’re wearing. It will be much more elegant, don’t you think?”

Her father examined his daughter for a moment and then shrugged. “If that’s what you want, and you think the Schoonmakers will agree.”

“Oh, yes. It’s just perfect! And I know they’ll agree.” Penelope stood now and clasped her hands. The excitement had come into her mother’s face now — she had several new jewels that she had not yet gotten to show off, as her daughter knew well enough. Grayson gave his sister a look of tickled admiration. “You’ll go tonight, won’t you? We all will, to tell the Schoonmakers the plan. And then tomorrow Henry and I, and his family, and all of you, can go up to Tuxedo and begin preparations. That way, we won’t be bothered by all the hubbub!”

By hubbub, Penelope meant to imply the columnists who so exhaustively documented any wedding of remote social importance. Her parents were sensitive to how things were done, of course, and they could be persuaded to do anything that might avoid ridicule and social censure. But the hubbub Penelope was in fact thinking of was the kind caused by the Holland sisters. Once she got herself and her fiancé out of the city, then she would be able to sleep a little better. She would be that much closer to what was rightfully hers being hers — according to society and the public and, soon enough, God, too.

Dear Diana,

I once gave you a piece of jewelry

inscribed For My True Bride,

and I feel the same now as then, if

not more so. I know it must be

difficult for you to believe, but what I

am about to do is loath some to me.

Trust me when I tell you she left

me with no other options…

HENRY DID NOT LOOK TO SEE THE CITY GO BY, and when the Schoonmakers’ private railway car did emerge in the suburbs, he found little of interest in the rivers and icy landscapes that passed. He was not leaving willingly. He was leaving mechanically, which was the way he did everything these days. He had dressed by rote, in high white collar and black jacket, and he had combed and slicked his hair in the same habitual manner. This was the same manner he had used in writing notes to his friends, asking them to be his groomsmen, and to his usual salesman at Tiffany, who had arranged for the rings. The refrain in his mind was a kind of habit too. He told himself over and over that he was doing the good and heroic thing and that his actions would save Diana from certain ruin.

Now, as the train drew him closer to Tuxedo and a fate he found miserable while not yet being able to imagine, he tried to compose a letter that might explain what he had done. Diana must have heard by now. They would all be talking, and her mother would no doubt weigh against her daughter’s former fiancé for getting engaged again so quickly, without any knowledge of how painful and humiliating the news would be to her other child. He couldn’t stand the idea of Diana hearing from someone else. He would have liked to have held her and shown that it was all for her protection, but he doubted she would want that anymore. He’d never done anything heroic before, and he was unpleasantly surprised by how lousy it felt.

He’d written the letter a hundred ways in his head. He had explained that marrying Penelope was the only solution and the easiest one, that it would give Diana a second chance that circumstances made impossible for him. In one moment, he resolved to tell her that they would always be lovers, and in another that he would leave her alone so that she could have other, grander loves. He drew himself as a valiant savior and Penelope as girl made of pure evil, but he had ceased believing any of those things. There was no way to make sense with words of what had happened.

His bride-to-be was coming for him down the aisle of the train, resting her hands on the velvet seats to steady herself, but beaming with such confidence that she hardly seemed to need to lean on anything. She had been on the other end of the private car with the little girls who were going to distribute rose petals at the beginning of the ceremony, showing off her new diamond to them. She was wearing a white cashmere coat with a high collar, and her lips were painted the red of pomegranate seeds. Henry watched her coming toward him and crumpled the letter he had been writing to the girl he’d called his true bride. There was nothing more to say.

Police precincts all over the city have reported anonymous tips from people who claim to have seen Elizabeth Holland in all sorts of places: a Ludlow Street butcher’s, on the Brooklyn Bridge, driving a hansom across the park in jodhpurs and top hat. This sheds even more doubt on the ludicrous rumors that she is still living.

— FROM THE FIRST PAGE OF THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL, DECEMBER 31, 1899

AT GRAND CENTRAL THERE WAS AN AIR OF motion and confusion, and everywhere were men and women in their heavy winter clothes laden down with the impedimenta of travel. The waiting room of the station, with its rows of long, polished benches, were thronged and the sounds of delay announcements and cries for lost family members filled Will’s and Elizabeth’s ears. It was not, in fact, a slow day for travel, as Snowden had insisted it would be: Men who worked in the city were hurrying home to their families, and those who had come on benders and run out of money before the great New Year were heading away in shame. Meanwhile, revelers from the outlying boroughs were flooding the city. Good-byes had taken longer than they should have, and now they had to hurry. They had been warned by Mrs. Holland to be discreet, to do nothing that might call attention to them, but Will and Elizabeth Keller now found that in the rush of arrivals and departures they were all smiles and could not help grasping each other’s hands.