I have seen it often: For many couples, all the golden splendor of a marriage occurs after the love has been lost.
— MAEVE DE JONG, LOVE AND OTHER FOLLIES OF THE GREAT FAMILIES OF OLD NEW YORK
TO HER HORROR, PENELOPE WOKE TO THE VIEW of her own white-and-gold bedroom. She was at home, or whatever the Schoonmaker mansion was to her now. She wasn’t sure how she had come to be here, and the mental task of retracing her steps contained no small amount of dread for her. Someone had taken her hair down and her corset off, she discovered, as her hands moved over her person. There was a small egg-shaped bump on the side of her head, under her undone dark locks, which was tender to her fingertips, and when she rolled over to better see her environs she noticed the ivory skirt she had been wearing earlier cast across a chair. That was the skirt she’d selected to meet the prince of Bavaria, when she had still believed he would make her a princess. Oh, God, she thought, the prince of Bavaria. Then a wave of revulsion came over her as she remembered how publicly pathetic she had been. On the side of her bed Robber, her Boston Terrier, sat panting, his beady black eyes cast up at her as though in accusation.
“Shut up,” she said, throwing back the blankets and wheeling her legs overhead and then bringing them down hard on the floor. The animal, frightened, went skittering forward across the carpet. She was dressed in a thin white silk chemise and her wedding rings. Her dark hair, without restraints of any kind, fell almost to her waist. She was thirsty, and for once in her life, felt more fear than hate. “What’s to become of us?” she asked Robber self-pityingly. But he was now half-obscured behind a hassock; at least he too seemed scared, although not as much as their desperate situation warranted. Penelope walked forward through the room — really it would be more accurate to say she stumbled, for she felt a little dizzy after her fall in the hotel, and her legs were bandy — searching for something to quench her thirst.
They had left her nothing. No pitcher of cold water infused with apple slices, no tall glass of lemonade. She knew perfectly well, with a staff as competent as the Schoonmakers’, that it would not be misinterpretation to call this a hostile gesture. Nor was it unexpected, really. She had always been a foreigner in this house, and she had flouted the servants and tried their goodwill. If she ever had the good luck to be married again, Penelope swore to herself, she would be sensible enough to play the diplomat. She turned to Robber and bent toward him with the half-formed hope that he might provide a little warmth to her open arms. But he saw her coming and dashed away.
At the beginning of that day, Penelope had believed herself nearly in possession of a prince, but by late afternoon, she was so thoroughly demoralized that she saw no reason not to chase after a dog. Robber went running up the little flight of stairs to the adjacent room, which had once been Henry’s bedroom, and later a kind of study for him. There he had slept, most nights, before he went off to war. She hurried after Robber, barefoot, and into that shadier room, where no lamps had been lit, and the glow of summer dusk shone in through the west-facing window. Her disobedient pet went in that direction, disappearing beneath one of a pair of large black leather-and-mahogany chairs, where to her surprise, she saw a figure frozen in rumination.
“Oh…Penny. It’s you.” Henry, sitting in one of the chairs, turned away from her and went back to gazing out the window. It had been a long time since her husband had seen her in anything but full dress, and for a moment Penelope felt embarrassed that her skinny legs were visible below her ruffled undergarments. His legs were crossed and his elbow was placed against the polished wood armrest; she was surprised, and yet there was something natural about his presence.
“What are you doing here?” she began. “I would have thought you would be off with your little lover, Diana,” she added, more cruelly.
“No,” Henry said. He let out a sigh of uncharacteristic melancholy and defeat. “That’s all over.”
“All over?”
“Yes. She went to Paris this afternoon. In the end, being the wife of Henry Schoonmaker didn’t sound so grand to her.” The pink-and-orange sky lent a special warmth and shadow to Henry’s face, as though to spite the sad workings of his mouth and brows. She hovered behind him, unsure what exactly there was to say. She supposed it boded well for her, however — if he was heartbroken, he would have less energy to throw her out on the street immediately, and perhaps her total degradation could be stalled until she came up with another plan. “I suppose you are surprised to be here? The servants told me you had your best things sent to your parents’ house.”
“Yes…,” she acknowledged cautiously.
“Are you feeling all right? Apparently staff from the New Netherland brought you here. They said you fainted, but that was all they would say.”
“Oh…yes. I don’t know; I can’t remember.” An ache shot through her head, the way an earthquake sends fissures through the earth. She did not want to be made to think of the incident. “I mean, I remember the New Netherland of course, but why I was there, and the being brought back here, escape me now.”
Henry did not reply. Perhaps he simply did not care enough about her shameful activities to bring attention to them. There was a kind of dispirited honesty about him, and she supposed that after all the havoc they’d wrought, neither had very much left over for anger or deceit. Her eyes darted to his black jacket, in a heap on the floor, and beside it a small suede jewelry box.
“May I look?” she asked, tiptoeing forward and picking up the box.
“Why not?” Henry replied flatly. He reached into his breast pocket and removed a cigarette. The sweet smell of tobacco smoke filled her nose as she drew back the lid and saw the huge sapphire set in a corona of diamonds.
“Oh!” she gasped.
“It was for Diana.”
Penelope’s dark eyebrows sailed into a perfectly alabaster forehead. “Even after this, she wouldn’t stay?”
“No.” Henry exhaled, as though to cut off a path of conversation. “Where is your prince?”
A thousand lies played on Penelope’s tongue, but none of them seemed likely to restore her dignity. “He departed for Europe this afternoon,” she began matter-of-factly. She winced, remembering how thoroughly she had been used, how foolishly she had believed him to be in love, and all the other fantasies of a very far-flung life she’d allowed herself to cultivate. But there was no getting around facts that would soon be printed in the columns. “He went back to tell his family that he’s engaged to the daughter of the count de Perignon.”
“Oh.” Still Henry did not look away from the view of the skyline, which cut geometric shapes out of that array of dying color. “I’m sorry you lost him,” he added, and she thought he was, perhaps, sincere.
“Yes, well, men are ever fools,” Penelope returned, some snappish pride returning to her tone at last. “Give me one of those.”
Henry twisted his neck and assessed her. Then he offered a cigarette from a slim gold case, and lit it for her with a match.
“What a wreck we’ve made of everything,” Penelope said as she exhaled into the growing darkness. There was still a throb in her head, but she found that it calmed her to stand like this, taking smoke into her lungs, speaking in tones of exhaustion and regret with the boy whose attainment she had once upon a time believed would fix everything.
“Yes,” Henry replied, although he didn’t sound particularly remorseful. He sounded broken, and tired, and indifferent. They didn’t speak again until their cigarettes had burned down, and then he lit another two and handed one to Penelope. She took it, and was grateful. “Whoever would have imagined,” he went on eventually, with a rueful laugh, “a year ago this time — it was hot like now, remember? And you and your family were living on Fifth Avenue, and we met in hotel rooms all over the city and neither of us took anything very seriously. And now we are married, and miserable, and everything is in tatters.”
“At least you wear misery well, Mr. Schoonmaker,” she replied dryly.
He responded with the same sad laugh. “What does any of it matter?”
“You mean, what does it matter if we wear our misery and humiliation hideously or gorgeously? It doesn’t, I suppose. But as long as we’re both miserable and handsome and here, we might as well have a drink.” For a moment she feared she had been too friendly, and that he would finally tell her to leave. “I could use one,” she added hastily.
“Yes.” Still Henry wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I think that’s the right idea.”
She placed her cigarette between her lips and walked over to the collection of cut glass bottles on the sideboard. She poured them each a glass of Scotch, and then returned to the window, handing Henry a glass and then lowering herself into the chair beside his. She did not care anymore that she looked a little worse for wear — her hair simple, parted in the middle, undone. Her defenseless slip. Without all the padding of a gown, she knew, she sometimes appeared too thin, but what did it matter now? Henry had taken his cuff links off, and he wore the well-tailored white shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
“Cheers.” She raised her glass, and attempted a wicked smile. Their drinks made a clinking sound. “To broken hearts.”
“To broken hearts.” His black eyes darted to her for a moment, and then he took a sip. “Perhaps we deserve each other,” he added, shifting his weight and letting it relax deeper into the cushions of his chair. He appraised her and then sighed, as though he were waiting out some pain, like a stubbed toe, that seems monstrous for a moment but is forgotten soon thereafter.
Penelope lifted her long legs, crossing her delicate ankles and resting them on Henry’s thigh. There was no response from him, but neither did he brush her away. She bent her neck and looked down on Fifth Avenue. The sun faded from the sky and the light around them grew purple and soft, and she began to feel that they might go on, just as they were, for a very long time.