Anna Godbersen - Envy

“I’ll miss you,” Henry said. “You had better not really get killed.”

“The same goes for you,” Teddy replied lightly. “On both counts.”

Henry chuckled agreeably, and thought to himself that there was no need to worry. He had made the situation with Diana very bad indeed, but he was beginning to see the glimmer of a chance that he could fix it. Teddy was right. Life was a short window, and there was no sense in doing the wrong thing over and over even if it was so difficult to stop. When they got back to New York it would be all different for Teddy and different for him as well, and he would be very careful to do the right thing and not get killed by his wife or himself or by anybody else. There was something to live for, after all, if only he could keep his sights fixed on it.

She was coming up the stairs on the arm of Grayson Hayes, wearing a dress of ecru tiered eyelet and a vast hat, and though she wouldn’t meet his eyes, he still felt her loveliness in his knees. He didn’t mind that she was on Grayson’s arm anymore, and the thing he had done to her had to be faced. There was plenty of life left, and if he had to, he would use it all to get her back. The time had passed for making promises to her — all that was left for him was to act.

Always stay sharp on railways and cruise ships, for transit has a way of making everything clear.

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

THE GUESTS OF THE SCHOONMAKER PARTY — WHAT was left of them, anyway — took the same elegant private car back to New York, although they were far quieter and more subdued on the return trip. Penelope remained frozen in her seat, imperturbable and still despite the jerks and shakes of the train. The light came through the window in lively stripes, but her face remained unchanged, her eyes fixed on the carpet at her feet or at her husband, who sat opposite her. He wore a cream-colored shirt, which she had given to him, and his black trouser — covered legs were crossed. He was reading a volume of poems, a thing she had never known him to do, and he did not bring his eyes to meet hers even once. When he had to speak to her he looked at her knees. She was still suffering from that horrid, choked feeling that had been stifling her ever since her husband had rejected her in the hotel suite, and she was having difficulty finding a reason to do much of anything. Though he had been civil to her since their confrontation, and she was beginning to doubt his resolve to leave her, she could not bring herself to feel triumphant.

Even getting dressed that morning had brought her no pleasure, and now Penelope was paying for it in a mauve linen day dress that was perfectly in style but did not — she knew — show off her best features. Or not exactly suffering, because she felt so blank that even that didn’t really matter. She slumped, in heaps of mauve, and managed to gaze a little farther down the aisle, where the Holland sisters sat cozily beside each other.

Diana drowsed on her sister’s shoulder, her face as soft and pink as a little cherub. A very young cherub, thought Penelope. A very irksome one. Elizabeth, who was only partially visible to her, stared out the window, very much awake, as though she were contemplating the end of man. For the first time, Penelope wondered if Liz truly was carrying the dead stable boy’s child. In the hotel, she had mostly suggested this possibility out of a desire to say something as nasty as she felt. But now Elizabeth was looking so stone-faced that Penelope wondered if it weren’t the case.

The other sister, meanwhile, looked as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Her face tilted upward toward the light in her sleep, her dark curls falling gently across her rosy skin. As far as Penelope could tell, Grayson had succeeded only in tiring her out. He had disappeared again, to the bar car, where he was spending a lot of time. That had seemed normal enough until just that moment, when his little sister remembered a muttered comment of Grayson’s about how much money he had lost in Florida — some of which Henry had loaned him — and how that was just the beginning of his debts.

Diana now persisted in looking neither wrecked nor ruined by his attentions. She was a tramp, of course, Penelope thought, although it was a shame that, as Henry had pointed out in their Florida hotel suite, she could no longer tell the world about it. Despite a devastating case of ennui, Penelope managed to cock a listless eyebrow, for it suddenly began to occur to her that she might be able to use that information, after all. The whole world didn’t need to know the girl was a whore — there was only one man who needed to be made to see it. Then she rested her pale oval of a face on her own sharp shoulder, and let the rocking of the train soothe her into sleep.

Had New York ever been so cold?

Penelope wasn’t sure if it was her brief period in the sun that made the bone-chilling end of February seem so intolerably dark and sad, or if it had always been that way. She had had too much of Henry’s silent indifference on the train, and so on the evening of their return she pretended that her parents had missed her too much, and she went alone to their house to dine. Her mother had invited some “amusing” people, as usual, and she spent all of the meal rendering them completely unamusing with her barrage of inane questions. Penelope let her large, painted eyelids fall slowly, portentously, shut and allowed herself to feel the full tragedy of having worn such a becoming dress — it was black lace overlaying an ivory satin, and showed off her slim waist to fullest advantage — on a night when only imbeciles would see it. Candles flickered in the center of the long, squat Romanesque table. When her brother pushed back his chair and excused himself, she half-smiled her apologies and followed him into the adjacent smoking room.

“You’ve really failed me, you should know,” she said as she swept over to the little heart-shape-backed settee next to the leather wingback chair where Grayson sat. His ankle was rested on his opposite knee, and he had just lit a cigarette. His gaze darted in Penelope’s direction and then away. She noted the faint purple quality of the skin under his eyes, and realized that he was tired out, too. There was another quality to his posture, she decided, something like anxiety.

“How so, Penny?” he asked after a pause.

“With Diana Holland, of course.” Penelope reached over and took a cigarette from the silver case that her brother had left sitting on the chair’s arm. He kept a wary eye on her as he leaned forward to light it. “You were supposed to entertain us all with a game of cat and mouse.”

“I’m sorry if you weren’t entertained.”

Penelope paused and inhaled daintily as Rathmill, the butler, entered the room and crossed the floor to stoke the fire. He refilled Grayson’s cognac, and when he exited, the younger Hayes sibling went on cheerily: “Of course I was! Only I don’t think you went far enough.”

“That’s a dangerous phrase coming out of your mouth,” he muttered.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Sparks flew upward from the fire, illuminating the dark room, with its sculptured paneling and vaguely medieval air. It was a room without windows, at the center of the house, and for once Penelope was grateful to be so far from the public’s attention. She exhaled and let her long, slender arm droop over the side of the settee, leaving a subtle burn mark on its magenta and gold upholstery.

“Anyway,” she continued, when it became obvious that Grayson wasn’t going to expand on his comment, “I want you to bat the mouse around a little more.”

“Oh, Penny, haven’t you had enough already?”

Penelope showed him her patient smile. She had become fixated by the idea that had occurred to her on the northbound train; it had given her something upon which to focus all her ambition and scheming — which had sagged briefly at the end of the disastrous Florida trip. This allowed her to feel more like her usual self, and anyway, he should have known that even in her weakest moments she was an insatiable person to whom the word enough didn’t mean very much at all.

“You haven’t even kissed her yet,” she said eventually.

“I did try,” he replied hotly as he relit a new cigarette with an old one.

“Maybe you’ve lost your touch with the fairer sex,” she speculated with a wan smile.

Grayson’s large blue eyes flashed in her direction as he threw his old cigarette into the fire. “I doubt that.”

Penelope suppressed a giggle at his evident pride on that point by pressing her plush lips together firmly. “Then why stop now? Let’s have some fun with her.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “She’s lovely, but she’s very young, and anyway, I’m busy with other things.”

Penelope considered confessing all to him, but then decided that her other method of persuasion would be more effective. “That’s not very brotherly, Grayson,” she cooed sweetly. “If you assist me in this, I will see that it’s worth your while.”

Grayson waved his hand and went on looking into the fireplace.

Penelope stood, so that her next statement would have the maximum impact. “I’ll pay your gambling debts if you keep the game up.” A crescent emerged at the left corner of her mouth when she saw the reaction to this in her brother’s face. He looked up at her very quickly, and his wide-eyed gaze remained on her as she moved toward the fireplace. She rested her right elbow against her left wrist, and brought her cigarette very elegantly to her lips.

“How did you know…?” He trailed off. “Anyway, where would you get the money?”

“You forget that I am a married woman. You know how much my allowance from Father is, and Mr. Schoonmaker gives me twice that monthly. I order all my clothes on the elder Mrs. Schoonmaker’s account, so you see, I have saved quite a bit.”

Grayson’s lips parted slightly as the possibilities began to sink in. He swallowed hard, and then he said: “What do you want me to do?”

Penelope smiled broadly now, and tossed the end of her cigarette into the fire. “Bat the mouse, Grayson, but harder this time, all right? Make her fall in love with you in a way that she’ll end up regretting forever.”

He put both of his feet against the floor, and rested his elbows against his knees.

“I know you’ve made lots of women feel that way already.” She could see that he was going to acquiesce, so she let her voice turn a touch patronizing now. “It won’t take too much effort.”

Penelope returned to her settee and took Grayson’s crystal snifter from the little regency side table and sipped. He must have been desperate, for he ignored her insinuation and looked up at her with focused eyes. “How soon can you have the money?”

Penelope opened her own large blues magnanimously. “Oh…as soon as you agree to wipe that aura of innocence off our little Di.” She let one eyelid fall in her signature smoldering wink. “And Grayson? Don’t bother being too discreet. It would be so much more fun if everyone”—by which she meant Henry—“knew she’d been compromised.”

Miss Diana—

When I come by you are always

out. When I send messages to you,

it’s as though you’ve disappeared.

When you grow bored of torturing

me, please call at the Hayes

mansion for a visit.

— G. S. H.

DIANA LOOKED OUT HER WINDOW AT THE INEVITABLE snow that fell on the middle lot yards. She pushed a stray curl away from her nose and wondered at all that enormous feeling that remained within her, even after so many blows. It was now clear that she had deceived herself all those long months — and yet she still yearned for Henry. When she thought of him she thought of the breakers in Florida, which had swayed her back and forth during the day and then later on in bed, too, even when they were only a memory of sensation and the faintest sound in the distance. Henry was like that too — he still swayed her, even so long after the fact. She was tired of it. She closed her eyes.