Anna Godbersen: Splendor

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”

He pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his coat pocket and tried to wipe away some of Elizabeth’s tears. Then he took her face in his hands, and brought it close to his. She gazed at him, seeing in this fractional moment of pause all the years when he had longed to do exactly this. She felt weak with the sweet expectation of a first kiss, and after that a whole life together. Their breath mingled, in the summertime hush, and then he turned his chin and touched his lips to hers.

A girl who has lost her reputation will, eventually, be let back into the fold of society’s little gatherings and grand showy parties, but she will never be allowed to forget her transgression, lest younger ladies fail to understand her cautionary tale and be tempted to repeat her mistakes.

— MRS. HAMILTON W. BREEDFELT, COLLECTED COLUMNS ON RAISING YOUNG LADIES OF CHARACTER , 1899

THERE HAD BEEN DAYS, AND MAYBE EVEN WHOLE years, when it had not occurred to Diana that she lived on an island. The pier that jutted off Eighteenth Street and into the Hudson was not so far from the house she was born in, and yet the breeze, the salt air, the shouting, the heavy traffic of luggage and crates, the hundreds of passengers moving up the swaying planks, seemed another world entirely. No wonder, she thought, as she looked out on the Hudson — so populated with barges and tugboats and skiffs on a cloudless July day — she had felt trapped there; old New York was hemmed in by water on all sides, and it was only when a girl ventured to its borders that she saw how vast was the landscape over the high walls.

A thin, khaki coat, belted at the waist, protected her from the wind and half covered her long, dark skirt. She wore a black bowler of magical significance, and she carried her little case in one hand and the booklet with her second-class cabin ticket and brochure and passenger list in the other. She had booked passage with her own money, which she had earned while traveling, and from selling news to Davis Barnard. Grass, her writer friend, had given her the names of friends to call upon in Paris, and of several hotels where she could live cheaply upon her arrival. Barnard had encouraged her to send him items, and promised that once she had established connections in her new city, she could write a weekly “Letter from Paris.” She was glad of the coolness rising from the water, for it numbed her a little; if not for that, she might have begun to really feel the fear and anticipation of leaving so much behind.

She had put letters in the mail to her mother and aunt and sister; they would receive them tomorrow, or the following day, and hopefully they would understand what she had to do. Henry, she knew, had already received his letter, for she had delivered it yesterday in person, climbing the imposing stone steps of his monolith of a house, a kind of final act of improper behavior in her short career as a marriageable girl of old New York. It stung that he had not come for her sooner, but she had the gift of imagination, and some remote part of her knew that any second he would appear, each strand of his dark hair in place, walking at a fast, urbane gait, whispering an apology to her about all the loose ends he’d had to tie up before he could leave his old life behind, and then drawing her under his wing and up the plank.

All the while, the great iron hulk rose many stories above her like some monster of the deep, its impenetrable black walls, the white paint above, all the portals and ropes and smokestacks up higher. Pretty soon they would be shouting for any lagging passengers, and then she really would be leaving for good. It took her breath away, the impossibility of this leap, and yet she couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t really believe it until she was on deck, and the water between her and land was too much to swim.

She turned on the weather-beaten pier and let her eyes drift across the great collection of people who had arrived with all the trappings of travel, and all those who had come to bid them bon voyage. There was so much excitement and trepidation and sorrow in those faces — round, long, fat, youthful, or worn. There was such a concentration of waiting and expectation. She saw a man, striding through the crowd, his black jacket unbuttoned so the waistcoat was visible beneath it, his hair brilliantined to a fine sheen.

Her lips parted and then a smile broke, as their eyes met. The fixated quality of Henry’s gaze indicated he had seen her a long time before she did him, and in a moment all her fear was gone and she knew she’d been right. Of course he had come. They were going to Paris together, and she need not worry or fret. Above them, benevolent clouds moved swiftly and silently over a concentrated blue. The shouting and movement continued all around, as though there was nothing re markable about these two people, meeting this way, in front of a steamer bound for Europe. By the time Henry reached Diana, she was beaming. He took the ticket from her and put it in his jacket pocket. Then, wordlessly, he reached for her gloved hand and sank down on one knee.

“I have not behaved as I should have — not this week, not ever. But neither have I ever met a girl I loved so much as you, and if you would agree to be my wife, I promise that I will spend the rest of my days correcting those original failures.” He looked up at her, his dark eyes — which were sometimes so hard to read — full of sincerity. There was no smile on his face. It was all a very serious variety of desire. In a few moments he presented a small box. “Diana, will you marry me? Stay here with me and be my wife? I promise, there shall be a proper engagement, and a great church wedding, and they can say whatever they want, damn them, but I will stand by you. Never again will I take your affections for granted.”

Then he drew back the lid of the box, and Diana saw the ring he had picked. It was not like the one he had given her sister, or the one that Penelope wore in some sad pretense of a romantic engagement. It was shaped like a flowerhead with a giant sapphire at the center of a ring of diamonds set on a delicate yellow gold band. There was a femininity to it, but it was also bold and defiant, just like her. She knew that Henry had thought about her carefully as he made his choice, and this softened the tightness in her shoulders. Her lungs billowed with sea air. But in the next moment she heard the commentary that would soon begin, from women who called themselves her mother’s friends, or from Penelope loyalists, or from any number of people with too much time on their hands. “Who does she think she is wearing a ring like that?” they would say, for as long as she wore it, which would be forever if she and Henry wed.

Forever , Diana thought, as though learning the word for the first time. Without waiting for a reply Henry removed her glove, stuffed it into the pocket with her ticket, and slipped the ring onto her finger. He stood and placed his hands on her neck so that his fingers thrust into her curls. She closed her eyes, and felt all of her swoon a little with the idea of Henry coming for her this way, persuading her to be his. His lips met hers in another few seconds, and the old magnetism between them came back in a rush, and she felt herself begin to give in.

They might have gone on like that, kissing on the pier, despite the height of the sun and the number of people about, had not the wind picked up. But it did, knocking the hat off her head, rearranging her rich brown hair, and carrying the bowler sailing. She gasped unhappily. It was Henry’s hat, and he had given it to her when they had only just begun to play little games with each other, before they had come to truly love each other. The loss of that talisman was momentarily excruciating.