Anna Godbersen - Envy

They made a pretty picture, which had probably been one of the former Miss Hayes’s motivations in befriending her in the first place. Their long necks were both emphasized by high collars — intricate, shimmering lace for Penelope, fine blue cotton for Elizabeth — and their narrow waists were showcased by fitted tailoring. The girls’ opposite coloring set each other off. Elizabeth had taken a little extra care with her hair that morning, and it rose in a hazy blond cloud over her forehead. She looked back once and saw her sister give a little exhale of disapproval, and then she focused the full force of her social capabilities — what was left of them — on the dining car’s private room, where breakfast was being laid out on silver trays.

“You’ve lost so much weight since the fall, we’ll have to get some food into you quickly,” Penelope went on as they swept into the room. Elizabeth noted the subtle sadism of that last bit, but chose to ignore it as they joined the rest of the party, who were gathered in a loose group just beyond the door.

A long table was placed below a gothic ceiling of carved and engraved walnut with arched windows set high above them to let in the morning light. Penelope passed Elizabeth off to Teddy Cutting, who escorted her to her place at the table. She had been glad when she saw his name in the paper, alongside her own, in the column that reported notable departures from the city, and had felt a kind of relief at his presence in the dining car that morning. Teddy did not play games like the rest of their peers. He pulled her chair back, and she tried not to reveal the dizziness that came upon her as she sat. Penelope’s brother, Grayson, who was wearing a coat the color of a dove’s wing, took Diana’s arm, and Henry took Lina’s, and they all moved to the table, the gentlemen pulling back chairs and then seating themselves so that no lady sat beside a member of her own sex.

Elizabeth smiled — faintly, but with the old grace — as Teddy took the napkin resting on her silver plate, shook it open, and laid it across her lap.

“Thank you, Mr. Cutting,” she said. “But I’m not an invalid, you know.”

Teddy glanced at her, but only for a polite moment of mute, gray-eyed concern. His blond hair wore less pomade than usual, although it did by habit part on the left side of his head and cross to the right. She had not seen him since last September, when he visited her family on Sundays, when people still did such things.

“I know,” he replied after a moment. “It’s only that you seem so delicate after your…trials, and one always wants to protect you.” He paused and took a long sip of water. “I find myself always wanting to.”

Elizabeth felt her cheeks blushing, as much because of his earnest tone as his familiar words. But Teddy was an old friend and a constant gentleman, and she supposed it was normal for him to have spoken to her with such care, just as she supposed the word always had no special connotation. Nobody else seemed to have noticed. He picked up a tray of scones and proffered it to her. The train rattled on through the countryside and Henry, who was sitting at the head of the table on her right, looked absently into his juice as his wife spoke loudly of Newport cottages and favorite architects and other things very few people could afford.

“I find his work utterly self-aggrandizing,” came Leland’s reply with blazing animation. He expressed everything with his whole body and with total conviction, as Elizabeth remembered him doing when he was more of a boy. It was just one of the characteristics that set him apart from his peers. “Although I appreciate the Islamic influences that he occasionally incorporates. Their architecture is so fascinating to me, all the minarets and mihrabs, all the arches and tiles, all that intricate calligraphy. Did you know that they use the calligraphy in decoration because images are forbidden? Oh, yes…”

Elizabeth smiled privately, thinking how frustrated Penelope must be to have engaged herself in a conversation in which she was destined to be the less active participant. Leland, meanwhile, continued unabated, as though delivering a sermon. Beside him sat Lina, wearing a suit of light brown herringbone trimmed in dark brown velvet. Everything she wore looked ill-fitting in the way that brand-new things often do; none of her clothes had yet softened to her body, and they seemed to be occasionally laughing at the less than fluid way she moved in them.

That was uncharitable, Elizabeth admonished herself. For though she had not quite gotten over the discomfort of seeing her former maid socially, losing Will made it difficult to sustain a feeling of hatred for anyone not made of pure evil. And of course what Lina had said at No. 17 was true — she had loved Will too, and so she couldn’t be all bad. She did look pretty in a way, Elizabeth could see now. With her lichen-colored eyes and her hair done up, she reminded Elizabeth of her childhood nurse, Lina’s mother, who was beautiful and kind and always so calm amidst the Hollands’ chaos.

Elizabeth broke off a ladylike portion of scone and put it into her mouth, hoping that a bit of solid food would have a steadying effect. She felt Teddy watching her, and tried to smile at him reassuringly. Just then the train went round a bend. She became aware of how fast they were going and had to reach out to steady herself on the table. The curve had destabilized everything else in the dining car too, it seemed. The cups trembled in their saucers, and the serving bowls on their platters. Everyone stopped taking, except Leland, who always moved so restlessly that perhaps he was uncomprehending of the train around him. He gestured wildly and his hand met with a carafe of water, which tipped, trembled, and eventually splashed Lina. Elizabeth’s eyes darted to her. For a moment the former maid looked as though she’d dropped a strand of pearls and was watching as they broke apart and rolled away on a hard marble floor.

“Oh!” Penelope cried, snapping her fingers at servants.

“I am so sorry,” Leland gasped, horrified with himself, as he began to blot Lina’s skirt.

“I’ll have some more juice,” Henry said to no one in particular.

“Oh…it’s all right.” Lina was blushing from all the attention and seemed to have already gotten over any potential devastation about her dress. She was staring at Leland as he furiously tried to soak up the water from her lap. Black and white — uniformed servants descended on them with fresh napkins and a new carafe. Henry received a glass full of juice. Down on the other end of the table, Diana leaned forward and plucked a croissant from a silver tray, several shiny dark curls spilling forward across her chin as she did, then sat back into her chair.

“Miss Diana,” Grayson, Penelope’s older brother, said. “Can I pass you the butter?”

“No, thank you, this is quite deliciously buttery enough,” Diana replied tartly. She was full of some strange energy that morning. Her every movement had purpose and life, and she seemed to find satisfaction in every little thing.

“There’s quite a lot of deliciousness here, I must say….”

Penelope’s brother was positioned at the far end of the table, and though Elizabeth wanted to look at him to make sure he wasn’t flirting with her younger sister, a sense of propriety kept her from turning. She disliked his lascivious pronunciation, and it did sound like flirting, though perhaps it was just a casual comment, she told herself as she glanced at Henry. But when she glanced over, Henry simply stared into his juice glass. Everyone was acting so…strange.

“Miss Elizabeth,” Teddy said. His voice was gentle, even as everyone else began to babble. He reached forward and placed his fingers lightly on her wrist. “Are you all right? You don’t look well. It was a sharp bend, and I suppose there may be more….”

Teddy’s fingertips, resting on her pale skin, communicated such exquisite kindness that for a moment she felt a variety of glowing happiness that she had not experienced in a long time. It lasted only a second and then it was overwhelmed by a terrible turn in her stomach. She realized with dread and self-disgust that she had allowed herself a pleasant sensation — something she surely could never deserve again — and that it had been inspired by another man, a man who had been born lucky and safe and who most certainly was not Will. In an instant she knew that she was going to be sick.

Her head was very cold and her body was very hot. Everyone at the table was caught up in their own loud voices and pressing thoughts. She let her eyelids droop for a moment and prayed that she would make it to the washroom; then she pushed back her chair and rushed from the private dining car.

We have it on good authority that society’s latest point of interest, Miss Carolina Broad, is accompanying the Schoonmaker party to Florida, which no doubt impresses all of her new friends. She is reportedly traveling with only a maid and without her usual chaperone, Mr. Carey Lewis Longhorn, which may make some of those new friends chary, although it will certainly make none of us lose interest.

— FROM CITÉ CHATTER, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1900

“MISS BROAD, I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THIS morning. I will make it up to you by taking you for a drive in my motorcar when we arrive in Florida. Would you like that? Have you ever been in a motorcar? I assure you, my clumsiness only reveals itself in drawing rooms and at fancily laid dining tables. You can trust me to be your driver. In a motorcar…”

Carolina beamed and nodded enthusiastically. It was difficult to catch everything Leland said, because he spoke so fast, and she also sometimes lost track of whether she was supposed to be nodding or shaking her head, since he asked so many questions in passing and she wanted to answer them all in a way that would ensure her spending more time in his company. She felt so giddy and delicate with him and not even very much like herself. She had changed out of the water-soaked dress after breakfast, into a smart suit of navy silk with complicated darts and white ribbon detail, and ever since then he had been showing her around the train. There were little explosions of lace at her wrists and around her throat, and she made demure flourishes with her hands whenever she got a chance to say something because she liked to see how they looked in flight. Leland had already taken her to visit with the train’s engineer and hear the brakeman’s assessment of the state of the train. (The brakeman was certain they would all reach Palm Beach in one piece.) Now he led Carolina from the observation car onto its deck, which looked back along the tracks that trailed behind them, curving so that they disappeared amongst the bare trees.

The day was cool and crisp, and the afternoon landscape lazily unpopulated under the blue sky. Carolina’s dress rippled in the wind as she stepped out behind Leland and felt the air — it was warmer than in New York, but still a little bracing. Like the parlor car behind them, which was outfitted with stuffed sofas and huge maps and velvet drapes, the observation deck was grandly constructed, with a domed and tasseled roof held aloft by gold-plated pillars over a half-circle platform. The railing was made of finely whittled wood with a high shine.

“I love the way the land just falls behind you when you travel on a train. Can you imagine what it must have been like for our great-grandfathers, who hardly knew what a train was and never would have experienced travel with such ease and comfort? What a privilege it is to live now, at just this moment, and to be able to go anywhere….”