Chapter Eleven

For the first time in six years, Miss Carolina Broud will not be hosting her annual Independence Day party. I know I, along with many others, were looking forward to this event but it is very thoughtful of Miss Broud to cancel on the account of the societal loss we all have endured over these last few days. However, seeing the youngest Holland girl for the first time in that many years has lifted the city's spirits.

- From the "Gamesome Gallant" column in the New York Imperial, Thursday, July 4, 1907

I woke up sometime later that night feeling worse than I had in a long time. The headache was now a fully-grown migraine. My body was drenched. For a moment I had forgotten that Ethel had changed me at all so I thought I was still wearing my wet dress from the funeral. I was covered in sweat and had a large fire in the fireplace at the end of my bed, but I was still feeling as cold as I was when I had come back. I looked at the table beside my bed and saw the tray of food. My stomach turned and I had to look away immediately to keep from getting sick. Instead, I looked towards my window. It was too dark to see anything but I could hear a light rainfall hitting the window over the crackling fire. I had no idea how long I had been asleep but if the food was still next to the bed, it couldn't have been too long. I guessed that it was still before eight o'clock.

I closed my eyes to keep the room from spinning and fell back asleep only to be woken up what felt like moments later by a cool hand touching my cheek. Now, instead of being cold I felt unbearably hot. I instinctively turned toward the cool hand, enjoying the feeling.

When I opened my eyes I saw Ethel standing above me.

"You're very warm," she said soothingly. "I think you have a fever."

My mouth was very dry so I clucked my tongue on the room of my mouth and closed my eyes again. I didn't know I'd fallen back asleep until Ethel nudged me and forced me to drink a glass of water.

"I'll tell Miss Edith you are unwell and you must be excused from condolence visits tomorrow. You just rest."

I nodded weakly and turned away to curl into ball. I had completely forgotten about the days' events and the fact that we would still get visitors who wished to say their sympathies.

The next time I fell asleep, it was for the remainder of the night.

Morning light came streaming through my window to wake me up again. The curtains were never drawn the night before, probably because Ethel was still new to paying attention to this room.

I groaned and turned away from the light. I used my hands to shield my face from it in the room.

I felt like absolute death. My stomach roiled inside of me while my eyes felt like sticks of dynamite were constantly exploding behind them. For whatever reason, my body could not find its way back to sleep again. So instead I just laid there and accepted my fate.

So this was life's way of getting back at me for the events of yesterday. After abandoning my family and kissing a married man, this was my karma.

Ethel came up a while later holding a small ceramic plate and a glass of water in her hands. The smell of toast and butter greeted me and I groaned in repulsion.

"You have to eat something, Miss Diana," Ethel said.

She took a seat on the edge of my bed and held the plate out. I looked from her, to the plate, to her again with a look of complete disgust. She continued holding it out. Reluctantly, I sat up in the bed and winced at the pain in my head as it intensified. I slowly took the plate from her.

"You shouldn't have gone off like that, Miss Diana," Ethel chastised, looking down at me with a frown.

I sighed. "Are you really in a position to lecture me?" I asked bitterly. A second later, I regretted my words. "I'm sorry, Ethel. That was really unkind and rude of me to say. I didn't mean it."

I was letting my anger at Aunt Edith and Elizabeth flow into Ethel who had been nothing but kind to me.

Ethel's eyes were downcast but she accepted my apology with a slow nod of her head.

"It's alright," she said.

"What time is it?" I asked. I took a bite of my toast. To take my mind off the taste of it, I looked out the window and tried to gauge the time myself before she told me. Nine? Ten?

"Almost one o'clock, Miss."

"I've been asleep all day?" I said, sitting up straighter. How could an entire morning pass and no one came to wake me up?

"Well, I came up earlier this morning. You were still running a fever so I didn't want to wake you."

I took another slow bite of toast and just muttered, "Oh."

"The doctor should be here shortly to have a look at you. Your Aunt Edith is worried since, well… since you visited with the Mrs. Holland."

My eyes widened. "You all think I've got what she had?"

"She just wants to make sure you're alright. I want the same thing as well." She patted me on the leg. "Keep eating. I'll be back when the doctor is here. Rest until then."

"I really am sorry for what I said, Ethel. I was taking out my anger on you, and that's not fair. I do hope you can forgive me."

She smiled at me and patted my leg again. "Of course, Miss Diana. But why are you upset? Is it your mother?"

I took in a deep breath. "That's only the tip of the iceberg, I'm afraid."

Her hand rested on my knee over the covers. "Would you like to talk? I'm told I'm a great listener."

"Do you know Mr. Schoonmaker?"

Ethel's eyebrow cocked with curiosity. "Well, I don't know him, but I know of him. Everyone does." She leaned forward, eager to hear more but just the thought of him made my stomach rumble unhappily.

I quickly told her about how we met and everything that had happened since then, including the trip to Florida, meeting in Cuba, and my eventual leaving.

"Wow," she breathed when I had finished. "You're like… star-crossed lovers! Romeo and Juliet!"

I almost laughed. Here was this woman who must have been in her mid-thirties was gushing over my wreck of a love life. I knew she must have read the columns when I was in New York previously and so therefor must know the marriage I very nearly wrecked. Well, now I knew that marriage had indeed lasted.

I sighed. "It feels like I'm inside a nightmare and can't wake up."

"So why are you so upset?"

I swallowed down the bile at the back of my throat. "I didn't come back with the intent of marrying him, or even seeing him. I just… I didn't expect him to still be married to her. And with all the letters I had gotten and all the time I spent home so far, no one told me. I shouldn't have been so caught off guard."

"Did anyone try to tell you? I find it hard to believe that anyone would maliciously hide it from you, Miss Diana."

I pursed my lips. The back of my mind was beginning to understand that perhaps I had overreacted. I pushed it away, too prideful to admit it.

"No one seemed to, no," I finally answered. It was true that I had stopped everyone from talking about Henry but that was only because I feared my heart couldn't take it. But to hide a whole marriage? That was too big to ignore.

"Well," Ethel said smiling politely, "either way, I don't think they did – or didn't – do that to upset you."

I huffed knowing she was right but still wasn't ready to admit it. I ate the rest of my toast in silence and drank a little more, growing tired with every bite and swallow. Ethel noticed my eyes going dull.

"I'll leave you to rest more, Miss," she said quietly and took the plate and water out of my hands. She put the water beside my bed and got up. My curtains were finally drawn. I was already half asleep by the time she left the room.

Sometime later I heard my door open. I kept my eyes shut thinking it was just Ethel again doing some chore or another. I heard a chair scrape against the floorboards - the chair from my vanity – to beside my bed. What was Ethel doing? And why did her feet sound so much heavier? I peered open my eyes to see what she could possibly be doing and gasped in shock.

Henry's deep, worldly eyes and sharp jawline met my gaze as he took the seat. Instinctively, I pulled my covers up over my body even thought he already knew what was beneath.

"Henry, just what do you think you're doing up here? If my Aunt Edith catches you…"

"She's actually the one who told me to come up."

"What?"

"I was going to visit anyways but then she told me you were sick. I told her to convey to you that I had come to visit and that I would stop by in a day or two when you were better, but instead she told me to come up and see you right away."

I stared at him, wondering if that was true. It was totally inappropriate for a man to visit a woman in bed if they weren't married. It was particularly scandalous when the man was married to another woman. If anyone heard of this visit, I would be ruined – again – only this time Henry would be pulled down with me.

But I figured what he was saying must have been true. Aunt Edith would have been in the parlor to receive and there was no way he would have been able to sneak upstairs without her noticing him.

"Why would she do that?" I asked, mostly to myself. Henry shrugged. "Why were you going to visit me?" I asked instead.

"I didn't get the chance a couple days ago to extend my official condolences."

"You wrote a letter," I told him. "That was satisfactory enough. You hardly needed to visit." I tried to sound cool and aloof but whatever sickness I had within me – I hardly had the time to worry about Mother's illness possibly infecting me – ruined that.

"Diana, stop it," he snapped. "I don't know why you're acting like this."

"If you don't know, then you hardly deserve to be here."

"I had no choice! I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything happened and I could have stopped it, no matter who it was. I know Penelope was quite a savage back then but she just isn't like that anymore."

"Do you even hear yourself?" I snapped back. "'I had no choice.' That's exactly what she wants! She's trapped you, Henry. You can't see it but it's abundantly clear to me."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're sick and it is clouding your judgement."

"I want you to leave," I said in a low, slow voice.

"What?"

I repeated, "I want you to leave."

"Why?"

"Because this is wrong! You shouldn't be here, in my room. You should be, if anywhere, downstairs talking to Aunt Edith about something mundane like the weather or wallpaper. And…"

"And?"

"And… because this is like torture! It is torture."

"What is?"

"You!"

"Me?"

"Seeing you here after all these years… Henry, I never stopped loving you. And to come back and see you're still with Penelope – the girl who ruined everything and still managed to make herself a martyr – it's painful for me. It hurts. I wanted you to get a happily ever after. But instead I get back and see you living inside a nightmare. She's bewitched you and you're too blinded by guilt to see it. It's not only hurting me, Henry, but it's hurting you, too."

He was quiet, listening to everything I said. There was a long silence that passed between us. I was half afraid he would just get up and leave but at the same time I wanted him to leave – leave my room, leave my mind, and leave my memories. But that was all wishful thinking. Instead, he reached out his hand and clasped mine tightly in his.

"Diana, the last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you. You know that."

"Do I?" I scoffed. "I thought I knew you, Henry. But the person I see in front of me is a stranger." I slipped my hand out of his.

I had to look away from him because the hurt in his eyes was too much. It killed me knowing that he was in pain because of me.

"Please, Diana. You have to believe me."

"I want to, Henry. I really do. You may truly believe that Penelope is this whole new person, and she may have been at first, but Penelope can only be kind for so long before she's back to her normal antics. Somehow she has managed to trick you for nearly a decade.

He let out one long breath and closed his eyes. "Can we please stop talking about this? It just seems like an endless circle."

"Well, what do you want to talk about then? Hm?" I said coldly. "How nice the weather is? How absolutely lovely the service was yesterday? After all, you did come for a sympathy visit." I rolled my eyes.

"Diana…" he cautioned.

"What?" I threw my hands in the air.

"I would just like to… to start over; to pretend that none of this has happened. I want to go back to how things used to be – just you, me, and that bed in the greenhouse. Before Penelope and everything."

I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. I was both trying to keep myself from crying and keep from getting sick as my stomach rolled at Penelope's name.

When the acid in my throat retreated, I said, "I wish it were that easy. But it's too late for any of that now."

He took my hand again, though more slowly and cautiously. With a deep sincerity in his eyes, which nearly melted my heart, he said, "It doesn't have to be. We can try, you and I. I didn't know you still loved me. Diana, my love for you has only grown these last several years. Now that I know, I'm willing to do it all again. I will leave Penelope once and for all. I will marry you. You're the only one I have ever wanted. I've dreamed every day of having you back and now it has become a reality. We've waited long enough."

The tears I had held back before were streaking down my cheeks and falling softly on my blanket. I knew what his next words were going to be – words I had waited a whole agonizing year to hear but then turned my back when he uttered them. I silenced them before he could say them by taking the hand he held and placing it gently on his cheek.

"Henry, don't," I whispered, offering a sad, crooked smile. "Don't ask me."

"I'll leave with you this time. I'll hand down my business and we will leave. Together," he said, with the last word emphasized and hanging in the air like a promise that could never be.

My hand fell from his face. "Even if we left," I said, my heart galloping at the phrase, "there's no way you would be able to divorce Penelope that quickly. That is, if she allows you to divorce her. How do you know she won't throw another fit or try and kill herself again?"

He nodded. "That's something I'll have to learn to live with. I've tried countless times to take her to a doctor to seek help but she won't listen. I've done everything I possibly can."

My lips trembled and I had to look away. "We can't."

"We can," he said quietly but he sounded so strong and sure. "Forget the city. Let's leave and never come back. We can travel the world as vagabonds like all those books you used to read. We can do this. I don't need money or fancy clothes." This time, it was his hand on my face, bringing me to meet his eyes. "I only need you." With his thumb, he wiped away a tear on my cheek. I closed my eyes, memorizing the touch on me. I wanted to remember his warm, soft hands.

It was the smoothness of his palm that brought me back to my harsh reality. They were hands that had never seen a day of hard labor. They did not cook or clean. It took me years to get used to living a life without luxury, and that was when I had thought I had grown up quite independently. Henry was different. He didn't know how life was – truly was – outside of money. Even when he joined the army to get away from it, his father had managed to keep him quite comfortable and quite far away from any actual war.

I took his hand off my cheek and examined it. There were no scratches or scars or calluses; only clean, manicured hands. I looked up at him and saw the hair that was so ruffled and disheveled yesterday was back to its usual pomaded style. His eyes were searching for an answer in mine.

"I'm sorry," I said at last. "It just can't be."

"But why?" he pleaded. "And don't you dare mention Penelope again. You are my one true escape from the prison that has become my life."

I clenched my jaw, wanting to leap out of bed and out of that city once and for all rather than genuinely tell him the answer. He was right – Penelope wasn't the only thing holding me back from the life he had described.

He saw the inner torture running through my mind and added, "What is it Di?" A sudden look of horror crossed his face and I thought he had realized it, as if it were etched into my skin and bared free to him. "Is there someone else? Are you married?"

I let out a small sigh of relief. "No – I am neither married nor with anyone."

"Then what is it? Do you truly not want to be with me?"

I furrowed my brows. "Just believe me – I am not the kind of woman you would want to be with, Henry."

"You're the only woman I want to be with. You are my true bride, then, now, and forever."

I let my eyes close, again wanting to memorize the moment in my mind. As they closed more tears escaped my eyes. I could never tell him the truth of my life and what had become of it since I saw him last; what shambles it had fallen to. I only knew that I was no longer a woman eligible to be his.

"Please," I tried to say but it cracked and came out only as a whisper, "just trust me."

As if an angel were watching over me then, someone knocked on the door. My instinct was to tell Henry to hide or kick him out the window like all those years ago when he drunkenly came to my room for the first time, but then I remembered Aunt Edith was the one who told me to come up in the first place.

"Come in," I said, voice stronger now. I sniffled and wiped under my eyes, attempting to make myself semi-presentable.

Ethel's head popped in and a look of small shock crossed her face as if she had expected us to be in a more compromising position.

"I'm sorry, Miss Diana," she said, still only standing in the doorway, "but the doctor is here. I told him to wait downstairs while I made sure you were … awake." She eyed Henry wearily. It was her way of telling him to leave before the doctor got the wrong idea.

"You should go," I said, turning to Henry now.

He nodded gravely and kissed my knuckles so lightly that his lips barely grazed them.

"I will return at another time. We must finish this conversation."

I bit the inside of my cheek before looking again at Ethel. "Please show Mr. Schoonmaker down the servant's stairs, Ethel. I'm sure we don't want to give the doctor a fright at seeing a strange man in my bedroom. You can show the doctor in after you've done so."

She nodded and Henry stood up. He put the chair back at my vanity where it had originally come. With one final, quick glance n my direction, both Ethel and Henry were gone.

The build up of stress hit me in one tidal wave then and my head was pounding. I closed my eyes to keep the world from spinning but it was useless. Even without moving, my body felt as if it were spinning in endless circles. The doctor walked into the room to the sight of me vomiting into a small pot Ethel must have brought in sometime beside my bed.