We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates’ faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects. These may be messages from God or tricks of the eye, but in neither case are we permitted to ignore them.
— REVEREND NEEDLEHOUSE, COLLECTED SERMONS, 1896
DIANA HAD BEEN STANDING STILL IN HER ROOM for well over an hour, wondering what she should do with that hat, when a scream from downstairs broke through her state of shock. A new frost alighted on her heart. When she had left the house the night before, it had seemed impossible that she might get caught nobody was paying any attention to her doings these days, and besides, her whole evening had seemed like an episode out of time, ending as abruptly as it had begun. But the noise coming from below was most certainly a cry of grief, anger, confusion, or some combination of all three.
Diana looked at the hat, placed just so at the center of her bed. She was trying to think of some story to explain this clear evidence of her misbehavior, when another cry this one more of a moan came up from the first floor.
Diana threw Henry’s hat under her bed and turned to her closet. The dresses she had taken out the night before were all there. It was too late to change, she told herself, so she quickly checked herself in the mirror. She did not look any different, after her night with Henry, but she felt much older already. Then the moaning started again, and she had no choice but to take the stairs two at a time to face what would surely be an inevitable circle of accusations and confessions.
Diana burst into the drawing room to find Penelope Hayes, her dark hair unusually low and messy, and her red muslin dress dripping onto Louisa Holland’s favorite Persian carpet. She was drenched and blubbering, punctuating her nonsense with occasional shrieks.
“Thank God you’re here,” Aunt Edith said, coming up beside Diana and wrapping her in her arms.
“How could you sleep so long on a day like today?” her mother added as she, too, came over and pressed Diana’s head to her breast. “Out of all the tragedies the Hollands have suffered.”
“What are you talking about?” Diana whispered. It was the loudest voice she could manage. She looked out from the clot of arms around her, at Penelope, who had all of a sudden quieted down.
“It’s almost too much to bear,” her mother said.
“It is certainly too much to bear,” Aunt Edith seconded.
At that moment Claire came rushing into the room. “I found a policeman on the street,” she said hysterically, “and he said he would go to the precinct and summon his superiors. Mrs. Holland, do you need salts?”
“Yes, Claire, please. And water.”
The three Holland women moved in a cluster to the nearest settee and sat down together. Diana was by now cognizant of the fact that this had nothing to do with her late-night tryst. Something far worse must have happened. She glanced once more at Penelope, whose expression implied that she had borne witness to a very grave occurrence.
“What’s this all about?” Diana managed. Her heart was thumping so loudly now that the rest of her surroundings seemed muted. Both her mother and aunt looked pale and exhausted from crying. They clasped each other’s hands across Diana’s lap.
“Your sister…” Aunt Edith began in a faltering voice.
“She’s…well, she’s gone from us, Diana.”
“Gone?” Diana whispered stupidly. “Gone where?” It was only then that she began to take in the details. The hat, placed with such perfectionist zeal at the center of the impeccably made bed. It was a message from Elizabeth. With every passing second, it was becoming more horribly clear. She felt dizzy and sick with herself.
“It happened this morning,” Penelope broke in, suddenly regaining her speaking voice. She moved forward assuredly, and situated herself on a small silk hassock in front of Diana and her family. Every sound and color seemed extreme to Diana now, and she was painfully aware of the droplets of water falling from Penelope as they hit the ground. “Elizabeth came by to visit me early this morning. We had planned to go to the dressmaker’s together.” Penelope spoke carefully, as though she were thinking out each word or trying to keep herself from crying. “She was all nerves about the wedding. I think it was just dawning on her how much there was to be done by Sunday. I thought it might be a good idea to take an early-morning ride by the water to calm her down. I wanted her to able to speak freely, so I tried to drive us myself. I just wanted to reassure her. After all, it will all get done…or it would have. That’s what I told her.”
Penelope’s speech slowed, and Diana turned her wild eyes toward her mother, expecting her to complete the story. Before she could, Penelope broke in again: “There was a strange man by the waterfront. The horses got spooked, and…and…I couldn’t control them! I couldn’t…oh…oh, oh, oh.”
“She was thrown,” Mrs. Holland said distractedly.
“Into the river. And then Penelope and the carriage were pulled for many blocks before she managed to get control of the horses, and by then there was no sign of Elizabeth anywhere.”
“My new phaeton,” Penelope continued, more to her hands than anyone else. “It goes so fast and it’s set so high!” she explained, and there was something in her voice that reminded Diana of bragging. “I can’t even really make sense of what happened. And then the water, when I tried to see if I could find her. It was so cold, so bone-chillingly cold.”
Diana was stunned and full of disbelief, but what she had seen upstairs told her that she had to believe. Surely it was Elizabeth who had come into her room and put all the clothes away. And surely she knew where that hat had come from and, put together with Diana’s absence last night, what it meant.
“But how could she have been thrown while Penelope remained in the carriage?” Diana asked. She didn’t want to ask these questions, but she had to. A nauseating guilt was sweeping through her, and she could feel Henry’s cross, underneath her dress, digging at her skin and reminding her of what she’d done. Her sister was dead, and it was her fault. She brought her eyes up to Penelope, who was staring back with what must have been pure shock in her face. “I mean…” Diana went on, in a barely audible voice, “you don’t think she threw herself, do you? On purpose, I mean.”
Diana felt the bodies of her aunt and mother draw back from her own, and a silence descended on the room.
She thought she saw a spark of interest cross Penelope’s face, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come and once again Diana saw only a mask of distress.
“We’re all a little shaken,” Aunt Edith said. “Or you wouldn’t say something like that.”
“Diana, this is an awful moment, and it is understandable for you to not quite know what you’re saying. You couldn’t, or you wouldn’t say things like that.” Her mother was struggling to keep her voice level, and though her face was unmoving, there was a muddy quality to her eyes that suggested untold grief. “You must go to your room. You must rest. But don’t go on saying things like that you must not or someone might give them credence.”
Diana was grateful that they wanted her to leave the room. She walked to the hall without a backward glance. Her chest was brittle with grief, like it might catch fire or crumble away. The thought of being around people who believed she was innocent was abhorrent to her. Perhaps, in her way, Elizabeth had loved Henry. Perhaps she had been so distraught by her sister’s secrets that she had wanted to do herself harm. Elizabeth must have felt like the whole world was upside down, and maybe the cold embrace of the Hudson had, in the end, seemed preferable to a world where the Hollands were not wealthy, marriage had nothing to do with love, and her future husband spent the night with her little sister.
Diana entered her room and picked up Henry’s hat. The things she had done yesterday had been thoughtless, but their result was horrific and everlasting. She had never really known guilt, and now it was overpowering her. Diana lay down on the crisply made bed, put the hat over her face, and let her whole body be racked by tears.