The English Wife: A Novel

by Lauren Willig

  “Not a very good one.”

  Janie remembered that first meeting in the kitchen, in his imposture as Katie’s cousin. She looked skeptically at him over the remains of her apple tart. “Or so you claim. It might take a good actor to play a bad one.”

  “You have a devious mind, Miss Van Duyvil.” It did not sound like a compliment.

  Janie gave her napkin a twitch. “Call it, rather, common sense.”

  “Another gift from your Dutch ancestors?” Mr. Burke raised a brow, deliberately provoking. “Along with the Delftware, of course.”

  Was he trying to change the subject? His theatrical career appeared to be something Mr. Burke had no desire to discuss. Which, of course, made Janie all the more curious. “How did you go from theater to … your current profession?”

  “Sure, and it’s all a form of the human comedy, isn’t it?”

  Janie frowned at him, refusing to be deterred. “Did you always want to be on the stage?”

  “I wanted to eat,” said Mr. Burke bluntly. “I drove a milk wagon for a time, but given that I didn’t like the dawn and the horse didn’t like me, it seemed better to look for other employment.”

  “So you exchanged milk bottles for an inkwell?” said Janie, for lack of anything better to say. It seemed very hard to imagine the urbane Mr. Burke on the seat of a milk wagon. “You don’t seem—”

  “Common?” Mr. Burke offered, and Janie felt her cheeks redden. He pushed his plate firmly back. “Let me dispel any illusions you might have about me, Miss Van Duyvil. I’m as common as they come. I was a foundling. Left on the steps for the nuns.”

  “That’s very … romantic,” Janie ventured.

  “No,” said Mr. Burke, “it’s not. There were dozens of us, left every week. The unwanted ones. There were so many of us that they had a cradle put outside the church. For deliveries, you might say.”

  The bitterness in his voice made Janie flinch. “You don’t know that nobody wanted you. Your mother might have been ill—she might have had no other recourse.” She’d seen it often enough at the Girls’ Club, women who had taken one misstep, forced to hide their conditions, give up their babies. She’d seen them crying in secret, only in secret, because to admit the truth would mean ruin. “This might have been her way of giving you a better start in life.”

  “Or of getting rid of an impediment.” Mr. Burke smiled crookedly. “You’re determined to make a heartwarming story out of this, aren’t you, Miss Van Duyvil?”

  Janie wasn’t willing to let it go that easily. “But just think. You might be anyone.”

  Mr. Burke choked on a laugh. “A lost prince? You’ve been reading too much Little Lord Fauntleroy. More likely I’m the illegitimate child of some poor soul just off the boat.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Even if it had been. Janie rested her palms on the table, in heady defiance of her mother’s strictures. “Just think, you can be anyone you want to be. You have no family telling you how you’re meant to behave or what you’re meant to do or meant not to do. There’s the whole world in front of you for the taking.”

  For a moment, he almost seemed to be listening. But then he gave his head a quick shake. “Or for the stealing. I’ve lived in ways you can’t imagine.”

  Janie didn’t have to ask what he meant. Even she had seen it, through the windows of the carriage, the young children huddled together in alleys for warmth, scavenging for food.

  “You’re right. I can’t imagine it.” Janie stared down at her own hands, so smooth and unscarred, the nails carefully shaped. “There are times when I look at the women at the Girls’ Club and wonder if I could have lived as they have lived. I wish I could be that strong. I … I don’t think I would do as well, if I tried.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Burke leaned back in his chair, his eyes on her face. “You’re not at all what I expected.”

  “My mother feels the same way.” She’d meant it lightly, but it didn’t come out that way. Abruptly, Janie said, “Would you like a cup of tea before you leave for your train? We can take it in the library.”

  “A foundling taking tea at Illyria. Your ancestors must be rattling in their graves.” Mr. Burke rose and circled to the back of her chair to draw it out for her. “Do you have anything stronger than tea?”

  Janie slipped out of her seat, very aware of Mr. Burke behind her. “Sherry, I think.”

  He gestured her to precede him, a strangely courtly gesture for a former milkman. “I’d say the day calls for it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Mrs. Gerritt,” said Janie, feeling defiant and bold, “would you bring the tea things to the library?”

  “For propriety’s sake, I take it?” murmured Mr. Burke as they walked together from the breakfast room to the library, down a corridor paneled in dark wood and hung with the murky portraits of someone’s ancestors. “Do you mean to drink your sherry from a teacup?”

  Janie’s flush gave her away. Mr. Burke gave a bark of laughter.

  “How can you be bold enough to seek me out, but not bold enough to take a tipple in your own house?”

  “It’s not my house,” Janie pointed out. “It’s Bay’s. Was Bay’s.”

  The reminder sobered them both. Janie felt the full oddity of it, entertaining a stranger in Bay’s house, while Bay’s body lay cold and still in the frost-blasted ground of Green-Wood Cemetery.

  For Bay, she reminded herself. Her association with Mr. Burke was for Bay. To discover the truth of his death.

  The library felt surprisingly cozy for such an imposing room. A hastily lit fire smoldered in the grate beneath a vast stone mantel looted from a French château, casting a warm light over shelves made of oak inlaid with maple. The walls between the shelves and the ceiling had been hung with red silk chased with gold, a pattern echoed in the long drapes that were elegantly looped back from the long, arched windows on the western wall, providing a view of the grounds and a tantalizing glimpse of the river below. Paintings hung pendent in gilded oval frames, portraits all of them, a parade of Van Duyvils, copied, she imagined, from the portraits in the old house, ancestors in periwigs and mobcaps, ruffled fichus and brown snuff coats, coquettish ringlets and bristling whiskers. Janie recognized her mother, resplendent in jewels in the costume of the early 1880s, sometime before her father’s death. And there was her father, quietly pleased, she imagined, to be back among books.

  The watch pinned to Janie’s bodice said it was just past three, but the early winter dusk was already beginning to fall, painting the landscape in shades of pewter and gray, making the red opulence of the library seem even warmer in contrast.

  Mrs. Gerritt set the tea tray between the windows and, leaving the door pointedly ajar, left them to their tea. Or something stronger.

  There was a decanter on a silver tray, surrounded by glasses of Austrian crystal. It was filled with an amber liquid. Defiantly, Janie bypassed the tea tray and took up the decanter, finding it rather more difficult to grasp than she had expected. It had been made for larger hands than hers.

  Trying to look as though she imbibed spirits every day, she said, “Would you rather tea or sherry?”

  “I rather doubt that’s sherry,” said Mr. Burke, “but I’ll risk it if you will.”

  Clumsily, Janie poured one glass, then another, grateful, in an odd way, that Mr. Burke didn’t offer to help. Whatever it was, it certainly didn’t smell like sherry. It had a peaty smell that made her think a bit of her father’s library, although whether it was because her father liked old books or had enjoyed a drink or two in the evenings, she couldn’t say.

  Mr. Burke accepted his glass from her and raised it in a toast. “To your very good health, Miss Van Duyvil.”

  “And yours.” Janie screwed up her courage and tilted the glass back as he did, only to find her throat on fire. It burned all the way up her nose and along her ears. Her eyes watered with it.

  “That,” she said hoarsely, when she could speak again, “is not sherry.”

  �
�Best Laphroaig, I should think,” said Mr. Burke appreciatively. “Sip. Don’t gulp.”

  Janie coughed again and held the glass up to squint at the liquid. It looked deceptively innocent in the firelight, like weak tea with honey. “Is this what men slink off to drink?”

  “Among other things.” Mr. Burke held up his glass to her in salute. “But seldom sherry.”

  “So you say,” said Janie, and took another experimental sip. It made her feel quite dissipated and worldly. And why not? she thought defiantly. The world had turned upside down. It was foolish to apply the old rules, the old standards.

  And she was so very sick of being proper.

  “Do you know,” said Mr. Burke meditatively, “that while the whisky is aging, a fair bit disappears, into the air, as it were. They call that portion the angels’ share.”

  The words made the hairs on the back of Janie’s neck rise. She took another sip of her drink, holding the taste on her tongue. “It’s a bit eerie to think of unseen beings drinking from the cask.”

  Lifting his glass up to the firelight, Mr. Burke recited, “Yesterday upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there. / He wasn’t there again today. / I wish, I wish he’d go away.”

  Janie caught herself looking over her shoulder, squinting at the shadows. “Did you just make that up?”

  “I write in prose, not verse. It’s a bit of doggerel a friend sent me. Hughes Mearns. It’s a song for a play he’s writing. But it does rather hit it, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Janie soberly, “it does. Rather too well.”

  An unseen head on a bed. An unseen hand stoking the grate.

  Mr. Burke set his glass down on the table beside him, resting his hands on his knees. “Would you like me to take a look at the room in the other house before I leave?”

  “Will it appear in an illustrated supplement in The World?”

  “Not unless there’s a body hidden there.” Mr. Burke grimaced. “Sorry. In the newsroom, we … well, the worse it is, the more of a joke we make it. It’s a way to get through the day without being sick.”

  Janie gave a slight nod to show him she understood. The room nodded a bit with her. “I almost wish there were a body on the bed.” That hadn’t come out quite right somehow. She wrinkled her nose. “It seems rather horrible to hope for a corpse, doesn’t it? It’s not that I want Annabelle to be dead. But it seems so cruel to let Viola and Sebastian hold out the hope that she might return to them. If her body were found … if we could bury her and let them mourn her.”

  “Then they wouldn’t have to someday face the fact that their mother might be a murderer.” Mr. Burke looked at her steadily, looked at her until she was forced to meet his gaze. “You’ve considered it, too, haven’t you? That Annabelle might still be alive.”

  THIRTEEN

  New York, 1899

  January

  There it was, the crack in the vase, the stain on the tablecloth, the topic that had been hanging over them both.

  “And hiding in her own house?”

  “A murderess,” said Mr. Burke, “returned to the scene of the crime to burn the evidence. She knows the house. She has a motive. It makes a compelling story. Wronged wife stabs husband and flees. The classic crime of passion.”

  “Wronged wife?” It took Janie a moment to realize what Mr. Burke was talking about. “You don’t really think—”

  “Mr. Newland cites your brother in his divorce petition. Alienation of affection.” Mr. Burke tipped back in his chair. “Amazing, isn’t it, the way a lawyer can manage to make even a love affair sound stale?”

  “Bay and Anne? No.” Never mind that she had once wondered the same thing herself. It was one thing to harbor suspicions, another thing to trumpet them abroad in legal proceedings. Janie shook her glass, watching the bit of liquid at the bottom redistribute itself. “There must be some misunderstanding. I can’t imagine why Teddy would—”

  “Teddy, is it?” Mr. Burke rose from his chair, crossing to the decanter. He paused next to her chair, looking at her assessingly. “I’d forgotten. You were engaged to him once.”

  Janie made a quick gesture of negation. “Never engaged. Just … an understanding. Not even an understanding. More of a misunderstanding.” She would have lifted her hand to tuck a strand of hair away, but her glass appeared, oddly, to still be in it. She drained it and set it down, her voice rusty from the spirits. “Our mothers wanted the match. And Teddy … well, it’s very hard to say no to my mother.”

  “He seems to have managed it.” Mr. Burke yanked the crystal stopper out of the decanter. “Otherwise you would be Mrs. Newland now.”

  Not by choice. But it seemed foolish to say that. The lady protests too much, that was how the saying went. No one would believe it. No one would believe that plain Janie Van Duyvil might balk at handsome Teddy Newland, toast of the Union Club.

  Mr. Burke splashed whisky into a glass. “You could probably get him back if you liked, slightly the worse for wear. Never mind that he’ll never appreciate you as he should. I’m sure you’ll have lovely blue-blooded children.”

  Janie flung her hands in the air in frustration. “My blood isn’t any bluer than yours is! Probably less, for all I know. My ancestors were merchants, that was all. We sold silks and tea. Our blood isn’t blue. It isn’t even purple. And Teddy’s great-grandfather was a fur trader,” she added for good measure.

  “Old Mr. Newland might have skinned his own otters with his bare hands, but his daughters wore silks and his grandsons sat on committees.” Mr. Burke set the decanter down gently on the rosewood table. “If you really think that doesn’t count for anything, you’re fooling yourself.”

  “It didn’t protect my brother, did it?” The words choked in Janie’s throat. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  Mr. Burke’s voice softened. “I am sorry, you know. About your brother.” He reached for the decanter. “Have another glass of whisky.”

  Why not, after all? Janie held out her glass to be filled. “I just can’t believe Teddy would imply that Anne and Bay … it’s monstrous.”

  Mr. Burke returned the decanter to its tray, leaning back against the table. “Is it? There’s no law prohibiting cousins marrying. It’s been done before. Quite frequently.”

  Janie gulped down a substantial portion of the contents of her glass. “My mother would never have allowed it. Bay was … he was meant to make a far better match.”

  “And instead he married an unknown Englishwoman,” said Mr. Burke softly.

  “Yes.” Janie had never thought before that Annabelle might be a substitute for Anne.

  Annabelle. Anne. Even the names sounded the same. They looked nothing alike. Annabelle had been small, slight, even, with dark hair and eyes, and a narrow, pointed chin, while Anne’s was a golden beauty, all classical features and bright colors, like a portrait newly painted. Like Mary, Queen of Scots, aware of her own charms, lips primmed in a self-satisfied smile that lasted through centuries and cracked paint. But there was something similar about Anne and Annabelle all the same, a way of taking on the world, a sense of secrets unspoken.

  Mr. Burke set his glass down, holding out a hand to her. “Shall we examine the room in the other house—while you’re still capable of locomotion?”

  The world quivered disconcertingly when Janie looked up at him. She felt as though she were on the deck of a ship, everything swaying slightly. “I’m not the least impaired.”

  It might have sounded more convincing if the words hadn’t been slightly slurred.

  “As you will,” said Mr. Burke, offering her his arm. It was a stronger arm than Janie had realized. Not the showy strength of Teddy, who bragged of his prowess on the tennis court, but a lean strength. Fencing? Janie wondered vaguely. Actors tended to do that sort of thing. Or perhaps hauling milk bottles. Either way, she was grateful for his aid. Her skirts were much heavier than usual and seemed inclined to tangle about her ankles.

  Full dark had fallen, tur
ning the gardens into something dark and sinister. Behind them, the lights of the library glowed dimly through the French doors, but the light only served to emphasize the darkness beyond. Down, down, down to the folly and the river.

  Janie swayed slightly, Mr. Burke catching her around the waist. “All right?”

  “All right. Just … everything looks different at night, doesn’t it? I’d forgotten how dark it gets here.” There was a moon, silvering the frost on the blasted grass, creating shadows in strange places.

  “It makes you miss the streetlamps, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Burke.

  “And the noises,” said Janie. It was painfully quiet, their footsteps crackling on the hard ground, their breath misting in front of them. She could hear every rustle of her skirt, every brush of Mr. Burke’s sleeve against hers. “Isn’t it odd? I don’t hear the noises when I’m in town, but I miss them when I’m here.”

  She had grown up the rattle of carriages, the shouts of vendors, the prattle of people in the street below.

  “We’re odd creatures, aren’t we?” said Mr. Burke. “We city dwellers.”

  Janie nodded. He might have grown up in Hell’s Kitchen while she was in the rarified air of East Thirty-Sixth Street, but they both had the city in their bones. “Not Bay, though,” she said. “He wanted nothing but to stay here.”

  Or maybe it was Annabelle—Annabelle who had grown up in a great house in the middle of the country, who had hated the noise and bustle of the city. They had abandoned their plans for a home of their own in the city, declined all invitations, devoted all their energies to re-creating Annabelle’s home on the Hudson. Wasn’t that a sign of love?

  The old house was in front of them. Mr. Burke stepped back to allow Janie to precede him up the stairs. She paused on the top step, looking back, frowning at him through the gloom. “Bay wouldn’t break his vows to Annabelle, whatever his feelings for Anne.”

  Mr. Burke looked up at her, one brow raised. “Love makes men do strange things.”