Anna Godbersen: The Luxe

“Yes.” Henry used his fingers to get his hair back in place, and then attempted a smile in Teddy’s direction. “I’d like to do that. I would. It’s just that Elizabeth’s sister, Di…Diana. I’m worried about her is all, and I wouldn’t want to leave without ”

“Without what?” Teddy looked uncomfortable all of a sudden, and the can-do color in his cheeks faded.

“It’s just that I keep looking at her.” Henry turned back toward the room where all the mourners were collected. There were several rooms in between, but he could see through the series of doorways the windows at the end. He couldn’t see Diana at that moment, but he knew she was there amongst all those people. “And I keep wondering what she must be going through. She must be miserable. And I keep thinking how lovely she is, and that maybe in time ”

He broke off when he sensed Teddy’s discomfort. Maybe in time, he had wanted to say, he could marry Diana instead. Perhaps that would be the beginning of everyone being happy again.

“Henry,” Teddy said. He glanced over his shoulder and then looked back to his friend. “You’re experiencing the loss of something that can never be replaced. I can understand that you might want to try. But what you just suggested…just don’t say that again, to anybody. It’s not right.”

Teddy turned and began walking back to the main room. Henry, feeling stung and stupid, and wishing more than anything that he could turn his desire for Diana back into a secret, followed quickly behind.

“Teddy, I ”

“Henry, it’s all right, man,” his friend interrupted with a wave. A few seconds later, both their thoughts were broken by the cacophonous wailing that was coming from the great central drawing room. They moved forward slowly and saw, through the series of doorframes that separated them from that central stage of grief, the figure of a dark-haired girl sunken to her knees on the floor. Her black skirt made a cone-like poof about her lower body, and on her head rested a black velvet hat. There was no veil to cover her face, and so it was plain, even at a distance, that the loud crying was coming from Penelope Hayes.

“Let’s go down to the water to see what can be done,” Teddy said disgustedly.

Henry was revolted. He wished that somehow he could meet Diana’s eye for a moment so that he could communicate to her how false he knew all of Penelope’s hysterics were. He risked a glance at the Hollands’ encampment, and just then Diana, still squeezed between two black-clad matrons, raised her veil and looked at him. Her eyes were sad and resigned, and he knew that she recognized Penelope’s falseness, too. A man moved between them, toward Penelope, and for a second, Henry’s view of Diana was obscured. When the man had passed, Diana’s veil was back down, and Henry could not help but wonder if he would ever be able to gaze directly into her eyes again.

Society is too shocked to speak. Its members are too aggrieved to be seen on Fifth Avenue, or to throw the entertainments they are famous for. And today will mark the lowest day our city has seen in some time, for Miss Elizabeth Holland’s funeral will take place at ten o’clock this very morning at the Grace Church.

— FROM THE “GAMESOME GALLANT” COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL , SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1899

DIANA HOLLAND HELD STILL AS CLAIRE CAREFULLY brushed and separated her hair for braiding. It was simpler than she usually wore it, but it was going to be covered by a hat, and anyway, it hardly seemed to matter anymore whether she was pretty or not. Her face had grown puffy and then gaunt in a matter of a few days. Over her shoulder, in the mirror, she could see that the milk-colored face of her maid showed almost as much wear from crying as her own. “It will be all right,” Diana heard herself saying, although she hardly believed it.

“Oh, Miss Diana,” Claire said, wrapping her arms around her mistress and squeezing her. “You poor dear.”

Diana smiled faintly and let herself be coddled. “It’s just still so hard to believe,” she said, once Claire had resumed braiding her hair.

“I know. I know. But today you will lay her to rest before God, and then slowly it will become real.”

Diana drew her fingers along the tender skin just below her eyes, hoping to somehow make it look fresher. She had spent several days now in a prison of grief, surrounded by cousins and uncles and aunts. Their speech was always short and woeful, their food plain and miserly, and they moved between the Schoonmakers’, who held a daily reception in the dwindling hope that some information on Elizabeth or her corpse would arrive, and the Hollands’ own Gramercy drawing room. She would not have been able to escape the memory of her sister even if she had felt right about doing so.

Diana had done a wretched thing. She had known this on the day of Elizabeth’s death, but the knowledge had grown in her, putting down roots and crawling up her spine ever since. She deserved to look plain. She hoped that she did.

“All right, you’re ready now,” Claire said. She had fixed the hat and veil so that Diana’s puffy eyes were obscured. Diana stood and allowed her maid to check all the fastenings on her dress. It was one of the black serge ones she had worn while mourning her father, and it was extremely plain, with no trimming or color anywhere. The waist was corseted, and her torso sloped into its narrow confines.

“I wish you were coming with us.”

“I know,” Claire said, putting an arm around Diana and walking with her to the door. “But there is the meal to be prepared for later, and who knows how many will come all of the Hollands surely, and poor Mr. Schoonmaker and his kin, and your cousins on the Gansevoort side, and…”

Diana leaned her head against Claire’s shoulder, and as they walked down the stairs she continued to list all the things that would have to be done around the house before the funeral was over. It was soothing in a way to listen to this enumeration of ordinary things. When they reached the door to the parlor, Diana smiled and kissed Claire on the cheek and then went in alone. The furniture was draped with dark fabric, and the air was filled with the heavy perfume of the hundred or so bouquets that were crowding into the already densely packed surfaces of the Holland home. Bad weather had come to stay, it seemed, and the light that reached indoors was diffuse and moody.

Several of her relations, in their black outfits, acknowledged her with sympathetic eyes. Diana tried to look appreciative, but she was impatient for the ceremony to be over. The grief she was experiencing was of a most private, self-loathing kind.

“Oh, Di…Di!” Diana turned sharply and saw Penelope approaching at a hustler’s pace. She looked shockingly beautiful in her black dress with its exquisite lace trimming and richly textured skirt. Her blue eyes were as fresh as after a dance, and her head was adorned with the thickest clump of ostrich feathers that Diana had ever seen. She was suddenly reminded of the word Henry had used to describe her. Savage. “Oh, Di, how can you even stand today?” she gasped as she reached out for Diana’s black-gloved hands.

“How can you ?” Diana’s tone was cool, and she drew back as she said the words.

“Well, I can’t, of course.” Penelope still had the conviction of her performance in her posture, but she had given up the quavering-voice part.

“Oh, yes. Right.” Diana tried to keep her voice from rising, but she felt nothing but disgust for Penelope’s fraudulent grief. Clearly, she was pleased by the turn of events. Already she was dressing up, in the vain hope that she might attract more attention now that her rival was gone. It was insulting that she should even think she was welcome in the Hollands’ home. “Everybody knows how famously aggrieved you are, Penelope,” she continued in a low, hateful voice. “We have all seen your tears. Why don’t you quiet it down a little, so the rest of us can have some peace?”