It is Christmas, with snow lying all around. But when the snow begins to melt, and takes with it all the cares and distractions of the holidays, we wonder if this story, which a little sparrow whispered to us, of Elizabeth Holland being yet among the living, will pick up speed. Or might the news come early and prove a true Christmas miracle? For now, we will just have to regard it as idle rumor.
—FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW YORK RECORD-COURIER, MONDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1899
IT HAD NOT BEEN THE TRADITION OF THE GAN-SEVOORTS to make Christmas a formal affair. They had always found it perfectly sufficient to prepare a large urn of hot buttered rum for whichever of their cousins might happen to call at their Bond Street house, and later on, they would send one of the young men out to bestow gifts on those family members who lived within walking distance. They treated it as a day to drink a little more than usual, in the Dutch way, and to remark on one another’s children. They were unlike the Holland family, who were known to “do” Christmas. That family held a musical evening with a Christian theme for a hundred or so, and later there would be broth served in a dining room so crowded with poinsettias that the guests’ faces would reflect the red glow. Everyone in New York knew that Louisa Gansevoort only kept those Holland traditions that she liked when she became one of them, and that their way of Christmas had not been among those that won her favor.
This was a rare point of agreement between Mrs. Holland and her younger child, and it was perhaps for this reason that Diana’s memories of Christmas were fond. It had been a day when she was encouraged to recite her favorite poetry, when her appearance only had to be good enough for the family, when neatly wrapped boxes of bright new things were exchanged, and when her father—having not been asked to spend time with anyone but those he most wanted to spend his time with—was in high spirits. Perhaps it was for this reason that Diana woke, on the twenty-fifth, looked down on the sun beating on the new layer of snow in the back gardens, and felt a breath of optimism.
This despite the fact that she had been a very bad girl and still had no marriage proposal to show for it.
The previous evening had given her only a taste of what she most yearned for, but she woke with a sense of pleasant anticipation, which the holiday always brought, and she found that it stayed with her even as she put on a dressing gown and pinned up her curls. Although Snowden’s presence at the Schoonmakers’, and that of the two large men who had trailed Henry, had made it impossible for them to spend even a few minutes in each other’s company, still, they had exchanged glances, and she had felt loved. She even wondered if Henry wouldn’t find some way to be with her again later that day. She went down to the parlor with the idea that she might spend a few minutes by herself by the tree, breathing in the pine, and if Claire happened by, she would ask her for a cup of chocolate. But when she entered the parlor she saw that the chocolate had already been made and that she no longer wanted to be alone.
“Elizabeth!” she cried at the sight of her sister, sitting in her same favorite chair by the fireplace, which held a few modest flames. Her hands fluttered involuntarily to the lace that was buttoned close to her neck and all the way up to her chin. More sounds came out of her mouth, although they were more or less unintelligible, and then she ran to her sister’s side and threw herself down at her feet and rested her head against her knee. Diana closed her eyes and just let herself feel that her sister really was there, body and all. It was a struggle to contain the news of what had happened with Henry, because Will was there behind her, sitting on a tasseled ottoman, still holding the iron poker, and his presence made her feel uncharacteristically shy.
“Diana!” Elizabeth brought her sister’s face up by the chin and looked at her. She bent and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“I can’t believe you’re really here!” Diana now acknowledged Will, whose long legs in their serge trousers jutted outward so that his elbows rested on his knees. It was funny, but not unpleasant, seeing him here amongst the crowded antiques and layered Persian carpets of their family home. They both looked thinner and like they’d taken a lot of sun. “But I’m so glad. Everything’s just a mess, Liz, and we need you, and I know it’s probably just terrible going all the way across the country and—”
Elizabeth interrupted her with a smile and a gentle “Aren’t you going to say hello to Will?”
“Oh, hello, Will!” Diana stood and went over to the family’s former coachman and kissed him on the cheek. “I know,” she said conspiratorially and felt her cheeks scorch a little. “And I think it’s terribly romantic.”
“Did you ever think you’d see me in your parlor?” Will’s mouth was stern and his eyes very, very blue. His hair had grown longer since the last time she saw him, and the baby-roundness had been rubbed off his face somewhat. The green branches of the tree behind him made his hair look a little reddish by comparison, and over the mantel Mr. Holland’s portrait stared down at him.
“Oh, of course I did! And…and…you must have been in here lots of times before, weren’t you? When we were little and—”
Will kept the corners of his mouth down, but the joke had broken in his eyes.
“Anyway,” Diana went on with a laugh when she saw that she was being teased, “I’m glad you’re here now. And you, Liz, you have to tell me what I can do, because things have moved so very quickly with Henry that it’s a little frightening and—”
Patience had never been one of Diana’s virtues, and she was so eager to get her sister’s advice that she almost forgot herself and her shyness about Will in the moment. When Snowden came in through the pocket doors—which his men had not yet managed to oil, leaving them susceptible to loud catching in the groove—she quite remembered what she ought not to say. She spun away from her sister, and the pleasure drained clear out of her features.
“Miss Diana,” he said mildly as he crossed toward their little group. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”
“I…” The words stuck in her throat. Several irrational plans sprang to her mind: Maybe she could claim Elizabeth was someone else, and not the sister whose death she had so often lamented to her family’s guest. Or maybe he hadn’t noticed Elizabeth, and if Diana created some distraction, she might slip out of the room before he did. It was with this half-insane idea in her head that she went on, somewhat defensively: “You haven’t interrupted anything at all.”
“Oh, no?” For a man to whom she had so repeatedly lied, he seemed neither outraged nor astonished by the sight of the dead Holland girl in their midst, a fact Diana, still so totally stunned by the whole situation, was more relieved than confused by. His gaze went from one sister to the other, but he waited patiently for an explanation, and this kindness only worsened Diana’s sense of having been caught in an enormous untruth. He must have also seen Will, but Diana was too terrified to look and see how he was handling this intrusion. Her fingers went to her reddening cheeks.
“It’s only that I’m hardly dressed for company,” she stuttered, still avoiding a fact that was becoming more obvious as the seconds passed.
“You must not stand on ceremony with me, who as you know has come to love your family as my own.” Snowden bowed his head a little in expectation and moved the heels of his scuffed, well-traveled boots together. Surely he must be feeling ill-used by this same family, who had so benefited from his largesse and who had misrepresented their woes to him.
But of course, Diana had been the only one who had known their woes were a falsehood.
Just when Diana was starting to feel a little desperate, wondering how she should handle this situation, Elizabeth stood behind her and came to her side. She placed a gentle hand on Diana’s shoulder, the touch of which seemed to encourage calm.
“Elizabeth, she’s alive!” Diana said then, waving her hands as though the illogical nature of the event had just occurred to her. Maybe, she thought in a moment of pure lunacy, if she seemed to have just realized herself, he wouldn’t be so angry with her later. She punctuated this statement with a laugh that contained not nearly enough amusement and sounded unpleasant even to her own ears.
“Yes,” Snowden replied. “I can see that.”
A silence followed in which Diana fidgeted uncontrollably and then turned her vexed expression on her sister. Finally Elizabeth said, “I know it must seem very odd to you that I’m here, given the reports of my death.”
“Odd,” Snowden repeated. His thin lips settled slowly around the word. “It’s not odd. It’s miraculous! I’m so pleased that I was here for this tremendous moment. I knew your father very well, Elizabeth, and I owe him quite a lot. I don’t know if Diana has told you…”
Diana shook her head, feeling very ashamed. She found herself hoping that he wouldn’t mention to Elizabeth how indifferent to him she’d been, and how generally poor as a hostess. Elizabeth would never, after all, have let someone give the family so much without the return of great heaps of charm and attention. And what must he think of Will, standing back there behind Elizabeth, still in his workman’s clothes?
“…but I have some small holdings of your father’s that have been wrapped up for a time—I won’t bore you with the details, but I have just recently been able to liquidate them, and I have come to help your family put itself back together. I hope you won’t find me overly forward, Miss Holland, if I observe that your family has found itself in financial straits and that such a situation ought to be corrected.”
Elizabeth went forward to the place on the carpet where Snowden stood and took his hand. Her sister could sense, even looking at her back, that she had summoned all her old warmth and radiance. The sun coming in through the high windows shot through her pile of blond hair, illuminating it. When she spoke, it was with the sweet, low tone of a much older girl. “I thank you for that, Mr. Cairns. It is unbelievably kind. I know how much affection my father had for you, and I can plainly see how much you want to repay that. My whole family and I are deeply grateful.”
“It is an honor.” Snowden held on to Elizabeth’s hand even as he made a little bow. “And I will continue my presumptuousness by telling you that my men have brought some presents that I would like very much to give you, and later on I hope you will allow me to provide your kitchen with what is necessary for a proper Christmas dinner.”
Diana looked back at Will, who was standing at attention with his hands behind his back and whose shirt of blue and black plaid was a handsome contrast to his suntanned skin. All of her embarrassment and confusion must have been evident on her face because he winked at her in a way that momentarily alleviated her tension.
“Oh, Mr. Cairns, such kindness.” Elizabeth’s hands remained in his, and her tone was full of honey. “I cannot imagine a better way to celebrate the holiday and—”
Diana saw the figure in the hall around the time her sister stopped talking. Her gaze drifted, and she noticed that the woman watching them through the partially open doors seemed to have tried to do her hair, although the effect was messier than if she had simply left it down. The long nightgown, which was fitted in the bust and neck but flowed outward from the elbows and the waist, gave Mrs. Holland the look—it occurred to Diana, before the gravity of the situation settled in—of a rather mad member of a Greek chorus. She was small of body, but she was watching the scene with eyes that were large, the irises like black pools in a forest, and rimmed with alert anxiety.
That’s what real surprise looks like, Diana thought to herself a little regretfully, just before she realized that she and her sister were going to have a lot to explain.