Anna Godbersen: Splendor

“My hat!” she said, her brows drawing together disappointedly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it back for you.” She gazed up at Henry’s face in profile, at his long jaw and defined cheekbones, as he gave the crowd and the docks a serious look to determine what had become of the wayward item. The way he stood, his appearance — so like a man that all of New York envied and desired — made her heart beat several times too fast. The anxiety of losing the hat faded; she was shocked by how quickly. A sheen came over her brown eyes, as though she might cry, and yet she was not remotely at risk of shedding tears.

“No,” she said, grabbing his hands and holding them.

He gazed down at her and for the first time a smile began to spread, as though she had just said something secret and a little bit naughty to him. “I should let it go?” he asked.

“Yes.” She smiled back at him, feeling the warmth of a small and private moment. “Yes, let it go. But no — no I can’t marry you. Not here, in New York, like this.”

“What?” the happy expression fell, immediately, from his face.

“Oh, Henry.” The traces of a smile were still visible on her lips, but she could no longer look him in the eye. The certainty of what she had to do had come quickly, before words capable of explaining. “I wasn’t threatening to leave because you hadn’t made a romantic proposal. What courtship could ever be more romantic than ours? It’s that if I married you I would always be the compromise second wife, the one ladies warned their daughters not to become.”

“What do they matter?” Henry’s voice was quick with urgency. “What can their thoughts possibly matter when I love you so well and need you by my side? My life is different now — I have responsibilities in this world that I must meet — and yet I don’t know how I’ll meet them if you are not behind me, my wife. I don’t care what they say or do.”

She nodded and pretended to consider. If there were onlookers, neither she nor Henry would ever have known. “It’s not that I care what they say, and I know you do not. But I don’t want to live in a place where all I can hear is the whispering about what a little tramp I am. They don’t matter so much, except that they are New York, the people we would have to dine with over and over again, and their way of thinking is so impoverished, and being among them makes me sad. I want to hear other noises, other voices, I want to look down vistas that…,” she trailed off, for the crooked streets of ancient cities overwhelmed her thoughts, and she knew that the man before her could not see them. She bit her bottom lip and batted back her lashes and met Henry’s eyes. “I want to go to Paris.”

“Then I shall go with you,” he replied, but she could see this was just what he felt he ought to say.

“No, Henry. You belong here.” She removed the ring from her finger and placed it in his palm. Then she took the ticket and glove from his pocket. That golden quality, which had always marked him as rakish and lucky, abandoned him now, and she realized she’d struck him dumb. This was just as well, for she craved no more inducements. There was only a long solitary path up the ramp, and then the sensation of a whole building coming unmoored beneath one’s feet. “Don’t worry,” she went on. She gave a little laugh that was made husky with sadness and wisdom. “You will fall in love again. Only know that wherever I am, I will always have the marks of you on me. You were my first love.”

“But—”

Her arms clasped each other around his neck, silencing him, and the kisses came in sudden, intense bursts. They were soft and moist and repetitious, as though both were trying to drink something in for the final time, and might have gone on indefinitely had not the crew started shouting for any last passengers. Then all around them loved ones erupted in shouts and cheers to their husbands and children and friends high up on the saloon deck, and Henry and Diana were engulfed in confusion and movement. There was nothing more to say, so she clutched his hand and whispered, “Good-bye.” Then she picked up her suitcase and ran for the plank before they took it down.

I have seen it often: For many couples, all the golden splendor of a marriage occurs after the love has been lost.

— MAEVE DE JONG, LOVE AND OTHER FOLLIES OF THE GREAT FAMILIES OF OLD NEW YORK

TO HER HORROR, PENELOPE WOKE TO THE VIEW of her own white-and-gold bedroom. She was at home, or whatever the Schoonmaker mansion was to her now. She wasn’t sure how she had come to be here, and the mental task of retracing her steps contained no small amount of dread for her. Someone had taken her hair down and her corset off, she discovered, as her hands moved over her person. There was a small egg-shaped bump on the side of her head, under her undone dark locks, which was tender to her fingertips, and when she rolled over to better see her environs she noticed the ivory skirt she had been wearing earlier cast across a chair. That was the skirt she’d selected to meet the prince of Bavaria, when she had still believed he would make her a princess. Oh, God , she thought, the prince of Bavaria . Then a wave of revulsion came over her as she remembered how publicly pathetic she had been. On the side of her bed Robber, her Boston Terrier, sat panting, his beady black eyes cast up at her as though in accusation.

“Shut up,” she said, throwing back the blankets and wheeling her legs overhead and then bringing them down hard on the floor. The animal, frightened, went skittering forward across the carpet. She was dressed in a thin white silk chemise and her wedding rings. Her dark hair, without restraints of any kind, fell almost to her waist. She was thirsty, and for once in her life, felt more fear than hate. “What’s to become of us?” she asked Robber self-pityingly. But he was now half-obscured behind a hassock; at least he too seemed scared, although not as much as their desperate situation warranted. Penelope walked forward through the room — really it would be more accurate to say she stumbled, for she felt a little dizzy after her fall in the hotel, and her legs were bandy — searching for something to quench her thirst.

They had left her nothing. No pitcher of cold water infused with apple slices, no tall glass of lemonade. She knew perfectly well, with a staff as competent as the Schoonmakers’, that it would not be misinterpretation to call this a hostile gesture. Nor was it unexpected, really. She had always been a foreigner in this house, and she had flouted the servants and tried their goodwill. If she ever had the good luck to be married again, Penelope swore to herself, she would be sensible enough to play the diplomat. She turned to Robber and bent toward him with the half-formed hope that he might provide a little warmth to her open arms. But he saw her coming and dashed away.

At the beginning of that day, Penelope had believed herself nearly in possession of a prince, but by late afternoon, she was so thoroughly demoralized that she saw no reason not to chase after a dog. Robber went running up the little flight of stairs to the adjacent room, which had once been Henry’s bedroom, and later a kind of study for him. There he had slept, most nights, before he went off to war. She hurried after Robber, barefoot, and into that shadier room, where no lamps had been lit, and the glow of summer dusk shone in through the west-facing window. Her disobedient pet went in that direction, disappearing beneath one of a pair of large black leather-and-mahogany chairs, where to her surprise, she saw a figure frozen in rumination.

“Oh…Penny. It’s you.” Henry, sitting in one of the chairs, turned away from her and went back to gazing out the window. It had been a long time since her husband had seen her in anything but full dress, and for a moment Penelope felt embarrassed that her skinny legs were visible below her ruffled undergarments. His legs were crossed and his elbow was placed against the polished wood armrest; she was surprised, and yet there was something natural about his presence.