“Miss Elizabeth?” Lina asked.
“Yes, please, with sugar and lemon,” Elizabeth replied in a businesslike tone. “Mr. Schoonmaker—you were saying?”
“I was saying that, well…” Henry paused, frowned, and then let his gaze meander again across the many objects in the room. Elizabeth leaned forward as she waited for him to continue. Eventually, his eyes came back to her—he seemed almost surprised to find himself looking into her eyes—and then he continued in a halting voice. “I wouldn’t want you…thinking that I was getting cold feet. And, well, the fact of the matter is I really am eager for us to be…married. And—anyway—what would you think about moving the wedding up?”
“Up?” Elizabeth said, barely comprehending. The idea of marrying Henry Schoonmaker at all was incomprehensible; that it could come any sooner was beyond her powers of imagination. But then an image darted through her mind—her mother sleeping blissfully for the first time in months. Elizabeth had nothing left to do but please others, anyway. She was trying to form a response when she was distracted by Lina’s clumsiness as she moved forward with the tea.
“Yes, to next Sunday. I understand my stepmother has already discussed it with your mother. The logistics, I mean….” Henry shifted uncomfortably in his seat before going on. “The advantage is that that way, everybody would be so surprised and—” He suddenly broke off, moving uselessly toward Elizabeth. “Careful!”
Elizabeth was already in a state of surprise and confusion when the boiling hot water hit her thigh. She cried out and pulled the soaked skirt away from her leg to stop the burning. She looked up slowly, her eyes falling first on the dainty gold-rimmed teacup dangling from Lina’s finger, and then on Lina’s smirking face.
“Oops,” Lina said flatly.
Before she could think what she was doing, Elizabeth grabbed the teacup off Lina’s finger and clutched it protectively in her hands. “I loathe your incompetence,” she said in a low, hateful voice that must have come from some very remote corner of herself. It was like no speaking voice she had ever uttered. “Get out of my house.”
“It was an accident,” Lina explained, in an even tone.
Henry was looking at the ground, and Aunt Edith was staring at Elizabeth, shocked by her outburst. Claire appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide with fright. Elizabeth didn’t care what anybody thought. “It was not. You are a sloppy girl and a liar and I will not have you in my family’s house. Claire, I am sorry, but she leaves within the hour.”
Lina stood still in the middle of the room, giving Elizabeth a hateful glare. “It was an accident,” she repeated unconvincingly.
“Thank you for your commentary,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was crisp and even now. She could feel the brown stain of the tea spreading across the light fabric of her skirt, but she refused to look at it. “You’re still fired. Mr. Schoonmaker, I am so sorry you had to witness this unpleasant scene. Please pretend it never happened. If you’ll excuse me, I am going to my room to collect myself.”
Elizabeth picked up her skirt and walked quickly across the room to the far hall door. She could feel the tears coming already, but willed them back for a few moments. The fact that Lina had been there to witness anything between her and Henry, much less wedding talk, made her feel both furious and ashamed. She sniffed and turned back to see Henry, Lina, Claire, and Edith all frozen in their positions.
“Thank you for coming by, Henry,” she said quietly from the doorway, “though I am sensing that I may in fact need to lie down for some time, to compose myself. Perhaps Miss Diana will do to entertain Mr. Schoonmaker for the rest of his visit?”
Henry’s face, which had previously been drawn downward by concern and discomfort, brightened considerably. There was a healthy shade coming back into his cheeks. “You should by all means get your rest.”
Elizabeth had taken another step through the parlor’s doorway when she remembered that she had not responded to Henry’s proposal. She felt no new warmth toward him, but still—if she had to marry him—it might as well be done quickly, and in a manner that satisfied the most parties.
“Mr. Schoonmaker,” she said, as she set another foot into the hallway, “I believe having the wedding next Sunday is an excellent idea.”
Without waiting for his response, Elizabeth made her way toward the main stair. Perhaps now she could put an end to all this agony and wondering and get on with the long haul that would be the rest of her life without Will.
Thirty Two
A maid of honor to any young bride must be always poking around—seeking information about her friend from the groom-to-be, her family, and even the staff. The bride does not of course want to seem to be always asking for things. But if her maid of honor asks the right questions of the right people, then she will be able to serve her friend exceptionally well, meeting every one of her needs and desires as they arise.
––L. A. M. BRECKINRIDGE, THE LAWS OF BEING IN WELL-MANNERED CIRCLES
THE RESENTMENT AND RAGE THAT LINA FELT FOR her mistress had been a long time in the making, but her dismissal from the Holland house, when it came, came quickly. There was Claire, staring at her in a frightened, quiet way as she handed her the small suitcase that had belonged to their mother and a paper bag of tea sandwiches that she had hastily prepared. Her face was full of concern, yet Lina could barely bring herself to say anything. She gave her sister a nod and then she stepped onto the iron porte cochere. Soon she was walking away from practically the only home she had ever known.
The sidewalk was beneath her, but she could scarcely feel it. She pulled Will’s coat tighter and kept moving without any idea what her direction should be. She was so suddenly untethered from everything. That was when she heard the sound of wheels and horses’ hooves against the street and then a voice she recognized.
“Excuse me.”
Lina stopped and turned slowly to see who might want to stop her on the street. She stood, silent and blinking, for a long moment before she grasped that it was Elizabeth’s friend, Penelope Hayes, who seemed to want to speak to Lina. She was perched high on one of those two-seater carriages with the dramatically large wheels, and looking down with a decided interest. “Are you all right?”
“Not really,” Lina replied eventually. Penelope was wearing a long skirt of wool houndstooth, and a tight-fitting, bell-sleeved jacket of the same cloth. A little matching hat was pinned into her hair. None of this made Lina feel any better about her black dress, her worn boots, or the oversize man’s coat she was wearing. “It’s been a god-awful day, if you want to know.”
Penelope leaned forward and rested her chin on a fist covered in gray suede. She continued to look down with heavily lashed eyes on Lina from the perch of her shiny phaeton. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Lina felt that she was being watched intently, as though she were a canary in a cage, which was all the more bizarre because Penelope Hayes had never looked her in the face before.
“Thank you, Miss Hayes.” Lina moved her small scuffed suitcase from one hand to the other, trying to remember everything about the gossip item her sister had read aloud about the impending proposal to Penelope by Henry. How could this haughty girl have taken the news of his engagement to Elizabeth? Her heart was thumping, and it took a few moments to voice the question she had formulated in her mind. “Is it true that you were so hot about Henry Schoonmaker?”
“Who says that?” Penelope answered sharply. She seemed a little shocked to be talked to in this way by a servant—but Lina wasn’t a servant anymore.
“I guess I read it somewhere,” Lina replied, casting a quick glance back at No. 17. There was no evidence of anybody watching them. “I’m sorry if I—”
“Where are you going?” Penelope interrupted. She made a motion with her hand that seemed to imply that she had forgiven Lina her impudence.
“I suppose I don’t know.” Lina sucked in her breath and moved her hand to her face, where she brushed back a few strands of hair. There was no
point in hiding it, she decided.
“I’ve just been fired.”
“That’s horrible,” Penelope said. She left her mouth open, so that it formed a shocked O—it seemed to Lina that she was trying awfully hard to seem concerned. “What will you do?”
Lina, who was still wondering how Penelope felt about the young man now sitting in the Hollands’ parlor, gave an indifferent shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Well, why don’t you get in?” Penelope smiled wide and gestured to the coachman, who had been sitting quietly all this time. “I was on my way to the Hollands’—I’m Elizabeth’s maid of honor, you know—but if they’re being so nasty they can certainly wait. We’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
Lina pretended to consider a moment, and then took the outstretched hand of the driver and let herself be pulled up. She sat on the padded white leather seat beside Penelope and listened as she instructed the driver to go. “I’m Lina,” she said, as she put her suitcase down between them. Gramercy Park South began rolling away underneath them. Already Lina felt that she didn’t live there anymore.
“I remember,” Penelope told her.
Lina paused and considered this almost certain lie. The person she was trained to be would have nodded and been thankful, but she had just been forced out of her old life. The person she would be in her next life was finding her way one second at a time. “Why are you being nice to me?”
Penelope smiled faintly at this and then peered over her shoulder at their new surroundings. They had passed out of that charmed parallelogram between Sixth and Third Avenues, below Fifty-ninth Street and above Fourteenth, where society lived. They were now in the territory of the working poor, with their herds of children and prematurely aged faces. The avenue was clotted by traffic and darkened by the shadows of the elevated train tracks. The shouts of deliverymen and shopkeepers were periodically overwhelmed by the rumbling of one of the stuffed El cars, passing on the steel girders above. So this was where they were going—a part of town where Penelope would not be afraid of being seen with the Hollands’ fired maid. Looking around her, Lina couldn’t help but feel something like distaste. She wanted Penelope to know that this wasn’t where she belonged either.
“So whatever did you do to the Hollands?” Penelope asked, turning her face back in the direction of her guest. They were very close, and Lina couldn’t help but notice the clarity of her skin. It was just as she had imagined it would be.
“Nothing…” Lina paused and told herself to choose her words wisely. “There was an incident with a cup of tea, which ended poorly…. And I think they always wanted me to be just a mindless worker, the way my sister, Claire, is. Not that she’s mindless, exactly…” Lina brought her hands together, rubbing the dry skin of one with the other. “But I just never saw myself being a maid forever.”
“That all?” Penelope prodded. She brought herself even closer to Lina and smiled.
“The real reason is…” Lina went on slowly, “I think I may have been fired for knowing too much.” It was now Lina’s turn to hold Penelope’s gaze, and she paused, letting the phrase hang in the air. She remembered hearing Penelope mock Elizabeth for her goodness on more than one occasion, took a deep breath, and resolved to go on. “It was humiliating really, having to serve her….” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she wanted to take them back. Lina lowered her eyes and then brought them quickly back up. “I mean them. I’m glad to be gone. Really I am.”
“You know…” Penelope pursed her lips. She seemed to be considering which words to use as well. The carriage swerved to avoid a ragpicker in the road, and both girls took hold of the railing while keeping their eyes on each other. “I think,” she enunciated carefully, “we may dislike the same person.”
Lina felt a surge of relief. So she had not misread the situation after all.
“Do you mean that we might hate the same member of the Holland family?” Lina’s voice became forceful, but still broke a little as she enunciated the word hate. Her body swayed with the movement of the carriage.
“Yes.” Penelope’s mouth flickered at the corners. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
Lina slouched backward and returned to examining the roughness of her hands. She was amazed by how quickly she had arrived at a way out of her problems, but she didn’t want to go too fast and ruin it. “I think I understand what you’re saying,” she answered cautiously. “And I think that what I know would be of interest to you. But, as you can see, I am completely adrift. I would need some kind of…gesture. To feel right about telling.”
“Of course.” Penelope reached over and took Lina’s rough hand in her own soft gloved one. Lina had touched many fine objects at the Hollands’, of course, but she was taken aback by the utter smoothness of Penelope’s suede-covered palm. “But give me a hint first.”
Lina had been keeping the secret to herself for so long, she couldn’t help blurting out the truth. “Elizabeth is not a virgin.”
Penelope turned her face sideways and squinted at Lina. She emitted a small, throaty laugh and shook her head. “We’re talking about Elizabeth Holland here, yes?”
“I have proof.” Lina reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out Will’s note. She passed it to Penelope, who turned it over and examined the watermark until she was satisfied that it was Elizabeth’s.
Penelope read it twice and then said, incredulously, “Who is Will Keller?”
Lina’s lips parted and she bounced slightly with the carriage as it went over a patch of particularly uneven cobblestone. “He’s the Hollands’—was the Hollands’ coachman.”
Penelope bit her lip and emitted an amused sound from the back of her throat. “You must be joking.”
“Not joking.” Lina shook her head firmly and thought how much better it would have been for her if it had all been some gag. “I’ve seen her, going into his room late at night, and leaving in the morning. And there were many nights when I would go to help her undress, and she would just be gone.”
“Since when?” Penelope held her skeptical tone, but there was a new light in her eyes. It was obvious how giddy she was to be receiving this news.
“I don’t know when it started, but I am sure it was a while ago. It was going on until very recently. I’m sure it was still going on until Friday evening when Will left in the night.”
Penelope settled back against the comfortable leather of her carriage. “Lizzie never fails to impress me.” Penelope paused. “Though that really must have killed her—usually she’s the one who likes to play hard to get.” She drew her red lips back from her teeth, which Lina was unsurprised to see were perfectly straight and white. “In love with a poor boy!” she went on in the same mystified tone. “No offense intended.”
“None taken.” Lina paused and coughed into her hand. She wondered if it was true, what Penelope had said about Elizabeth playing hard to get, and if that really was how she’d kept Will’s attention all this time. After all, he never would have been able to possess her. Perhaps that was the allure.
“And that’s not all I know about the Holland family.”
“Oh, really? What else do you have for me?” Penelope leaned forward, her eyes positively gleaming with excitement.
Lina shook her head. “First I’ve got to know what it’s worth to you.”
“Oh, I can assure you, you will be well compensated. I am going to take you to a little hotel I know of on Twenty-sixth Street—clean, anonymous—and get you a room for tonight. Tomorrow I will come meet you, and in exchange for this letter, I will give you…” Penelope paused and drew back a little as though she were assessing her new acquaintance.
“One thousand dollars,” Lina replied in as firm a voice as she could manage. Her price sounded magical when she said it out loud. It was the price of a Tiffany ring, of countless ball gowns, of carriages. It was more than enough to go to Will—it was enough to get him back in far grander fashion.
Penelope was silent as they
hurtled down the avenue, which was considerably more jammed and smelly than Fifth, and louder, too, because of the trains rumbling above them. Lina worried, momentarily, that she had asked for far too much, that she had already given up the desired information without any insurance that she would be paid for it. But then Penelope shrugged and gave her a reckless smile.
“That’s a lot of money,” she said. “What would you say to five hundred?”
“Thank you, Miss Hayes.” Lina’s shoulders relaxed, and she felt relief warming her bones. A thousand had been an unimaginable sum, but five hundred seemed to her equally outlandish. She would get a chance to make everything right after all. “Thank you so very much.”
“This has been fortunate all around.” Her new friend gave her a slow, purposeful wink.
“Yes, it has.” Some instinct made Lina lean forward and pluck the piece of cardstock on which Will had written his last thoughts to Elizabeth out of Penelope’s hand. “All the same, I’m going to keep this until tomorrow. And of course, in time, perhaps there will be other things that I can tell you. For the right price.”
Penelope looked saddened not to have the piece of paper in her hand anymore, but she nodded her grudging assent. “Then I will deliver your fee personally. You see, I am going to need that letter tomorrow.”
Lina did of course wonder why she wanted the letter so quickly—and what she planned to do with it—but her mind was too alive with what she would do with this profound sum of money. The girl she used to be would have used it to go chasing after Will, while he remained ever fixated on the elusive Elizabeth Holland. But this was Lina’s chance to make herself new, and she wasn’t going to repeat any of her old mistakes. She was going to make herself into something even brighter and more shining than Elizabeth Holland—the kind of lady Will would notice, and then be unable to ever look away from.