With no idea what she was looking for, Regina gathered up every envelope she could find with Mrs. C. L. Worthington embossed on the flap, settled in her rocking chair, and read. The letters were deadly dull, and she was growing restless when her eye fell on the postmark of one—June, 1919. A thick letter from Emily Worthington to the Reverend Wilcox, her brother. Regina unfolded the stiff, cream-colored pages and skimmed through a fond greeting and inquiry about his family’s health. Then she read:
I cannot say that I am surprised by your news. We will have a festive season, with not one but two weddings. The young people have spoken, and these days, we do best to listen to them. To my old-fashioned mind, no doubt better suited to the last century, this affair should have been decided for them, but I wish them all four the best.
Do not trouble yourself, my dear George. I will not say, nor even think, a word beyond this mention to my own “little” brother. I admit that I am partial to my Sophie. She is a lovely girl, inside and out, and life has dealt with her more harshly than she deserves. It was her own decision and does not reflect ill on young Mr. Hannon, who beseeched her, Sophie tells me with her hand on her heart, to marry him as they intended—yes, they did, George, they had agreed on it, though they had not yet breathed the word to a living soul. She is a proud girl for all her virtue, and she has no doubt that William, for all his protestation, was lost the day he laid eyes on your beautiful young Alice. If this is true, and I don’t doubt it, for how could any man behold that child and not wish to possess her, then I suppose it must be for the best.
Regina leapt to her feet and circled the room. Bebe’s version of the story, however crass, was true. William had gone to the Rectory intending to marry Sophie, but fell in love with Alice. She felt some satisfaction at having ferreted out the truth about one secret. But it brought her no nearer to what she felt she needed to know.
Keep digging, she told herself.
She undressed, put on a bathrobe, and trotted down the attic stairs. She listened—all quiet on the second floor. She slipped into the bathroom, filled the iron claw-footed tub, and took a quick bath. Absently wrapping her hair in a towel afterward, she found herself contemplating her father’s locked writing box. With a start, she remembered the keys.
Reenergized, she stole down to the first floor and stopped abruptly at a wavering light coming from the dining room. Her eyes widened. Fire!
Then, even as a surge of panic coursed through her, she realized that the light was coming from a candle. Standing in the archway, she stared bewildered at a single lit candle on the dining room table. The candleholder was out of place. It was an old brass holder with a handle, like the candleholders in the bedrooms, now purely decorative, but they did hold real candles, and this one had been lit.
She started violently when she heard someone else in the room. Her heart pounded. Peering around the corner, she saw Alice Hannon looking at the glass-fronted shelves that held dishes, crystal, and silver serving dishes. She was whispering to herself.
Regina backed away in confusion, then she walked back into the dining room briskly, but she was barefoot, and Alice still didn’t hear her. She backed up again and then said as she walked through the door, “Oh. I wondered where the light was coming from.”
Without turning toward Regina, Alice said, “I’m coming upstairs right now.” Then she looked around. “Oh.”
No doubt she’d been expecting Mary.
“It’s me, Regina.”
Alice turned back to the china cabinet, her expression faintly perplexed, as if trying to regain a train of thought.
Regina had always been uncomfortable alone with Alice. Sometimes, when she was far from home, she rehearsed easy conversations, but when the time came (as it did not often do), everything she planned to say deserted her. Usually, Mary was there. Without her, Regina didn’t know what to say.
She was on the verge of making an inane remark about the weather when Alice spoke, looking at the shelves again. “We’ll use the Wedgewood pitchers for water, and the Waterford carafes for wine.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tonight.”
Regina gaped, then said with a shaky little laugh, “Oh, it’s after midnight, isn’t it?”
“We’ll need to put both leaves in the table.”
“How many seats do we need?” It would be the three of them, as far as Regina knew. Were other people coming?
Alice counted not names but fingers. Then she ran a fingertip along the top of the buffet. “This will have to be dusted, and of course we’ll want flowers from the garden.”
“Are there flowers?”
“Of course. Roses.”
Regina’s hand went to her throat. Surely there were no roses.
“We’ll set the children’s table on the porch. It will be warm enough early, before the sun goes down. Mary, Frank, Edith, and Pace. The little Blue Willow tea set.” She abruptly turned to face Regina. “Where did you come from?”
Regina was panic-stricken. “I came downstairs—I—”
Alice was looking at her intensely, her face frozen in an expression of intense scrutiny. “You’re the one investigating Tiberius Rawley.”
Regina opened her mouth but found no words.
“I told young Robert I saw him.”
“You saw—?” Regina was breathless.
“That horrible young man. Sam Rawley’s son. I told Robert I saw him. He believes me.”
Regina flushed, but she asked, trembling, “Saw him when?”
Alice’s hand went to her throat and a soft whimper moved her lips. “Before and after. I told Robert. No one else believes me, but Robert does.”
Regina licked her lips, utterly unnerved. “I believe you. You—you think he…”
Her voice wavered and rose in pitch. “My father went to his grave believing they killed her as surely as if they held her under the water.”
“They? Your father believed—” She could barely push out the words. It was like trying to talk while running. “Who are they?”
“Maisie.” Little girl voice. “Maisie and the young man.”
Regina struggled to focus. “You saw Tiberius Rawley here before and after—” She could not bring herself to say it.
Alice leaned in and whispered, China-blue eyes wide, “Are you a policewoman?”
Regina backed up a step. “No! No! I—”
Alice began to wail. “My little Eugenie! My pretty little girl.” An awful keening noise came out of her throat. Then she gasped. “William thought she was the most beautiful creature in the world. Like me, he said.” Clutching her neck, she sobbed. “‘Just like you when you were young.’”
Regina thought wildly, like me? Then she realized Alice was talking about what William had said to her. The towel fell off and Regina’s wet hair tumbled around her face.
Alice shrieked and cringed, screaming, “Get away from me! Get away from me!”
Regina felt hands on her shoulders, jumped, and cried out.
Mary took her mother’s hands. “That’s Ree, Mama. Wake up. It’s all right. Wake up! Ree came home to see Papa, remember? You’d better put on something a little warmer than that, you’ll get sick wandering around the house this late.” In a lower voice, she said to Regina, “I’m going to put her back to bed. She’ll be okay in a minute.”
“She thought—she said…” Regina whispered, well and truly spooked.
“She’s confused. Dreaming. It’s actually more distressing to us than it is to her. She won’t even remember.”
Regina followed them upstairs and waited outside Alice’s door, listening to their mundane conversation.
“Here’s your bed jacket. Do you want water? Do you need the bathroom?” Mary’s voice was calm, quiet.
Alice’s was wavering and weak, but present.
Mary emerged and they both listened. All quiet.
“She won’t remember anything in the morning. But you have to understand. This whole idea of murder sets her imagination runn
ing wild. There’s no proof of anything, and there won’t be after all this time. Let it go. No good can come of it.”
In the attic, Regina sat on her hands to still their trembling.
Then she realized she still did not have the key.
17
To Richmond and Back
She slipped out early in the morning to get back to Richmond before nine, when Ron would arrive. As she drove, her head spun with questions she wanted to ask Mary. Who is Maisie? They? There’d been no suggestion that a woman was involved. Her shoulders slumped. Hopeless. She knew nothing.
The episode of the night before had left her deeply unsettled. She replayed every scene since she’d arrived, looking for signs that Alice was as far disconnected from reality as she had been in the night. Alice greeting her absently, eyes drifting to the tree line. Alice repeatedly excusing herself, shutting herself away in her room. Alice sphinx-like at the dinner table, steering every cheery memory onto the rocks of tragedy. Did the others realize how entirely she had disappeared into those yawning cracks in time? Was Alice only, as Mary seemed to think, sleepwalking and dreaming out loud? Regina had lain awake shivering a long time the night before, despite the dry warmth of the attic.
Arriving at work seemed like waking up from her own prolonged dream. She eased away from Rosa’s solicitude—and curiosity—as quickly and gently as she could, before tapping on Ron’s door. Then she answered all the same questions again for Ron: Her father was a little better but not good. They were trying to stay close by.
“Ron, about that project.”
He grimaced. “I understand you need to be there for your family, but I have to see something by Wednesday. The clients are coming on Thursday.”
“I can do it. What I wanted to ask is, could I do it there?”
He pulled in his chin, frowning.
“I have a studio at home. And plenty of time—we can’t be at the hospital all day. No one else is even there right now except my mother and sister. I have time and space to work on it. I can get it done on time.”
His brow had been clearing and he was nodding. “Sure, it’s a bit unorthodox, but if you can have it done on time, hey, that’s perfect. You can be here for the meeting on Wednesday, right? Clients’ll be here Thursday.”
“I will, I promise.”
“Now look, Steven did a similar project last year.” He had a folder on his desk, picked it up to show her. “Haven Acres. Home for unwed mothers.”
Regina took the folder and flipped through the materials inside. The shadowy image of a young woman, face turned aside.
“She’s ashamed, and she doesn’t know where to turn. We show her that we understand where she’s at. She identifies with this. We want something like that. A picture of a girl, maybe kind of down and out, you know? Like a flower child, but wilted.”
“O-kay.”
“Used to be when a girl ran away, she went to a friend’s house. Like maybe she had a fight with her parents because they wouldn’t let her see a boyfriend. She comes home a week later. Nowadays, it’s different. These girls run off with the idea that they can be all free and easy, live in a commune, whatever. Maybe she’s rebellious, maybe she’s a little on the wild side. Next thing you know, she’s wrecked. She’s into drugs, love-ins. You got to let them know we understand. That’s your hook. We know how you feel.”
“Right.”
“Do something like that. You made your mistakes, we can get you back on your feet.” He waggled his finger at her. “Wednesday.”
“Right. Thanks.” She hurried back to her office, picking up Rosa in her wake.
“Al MacDonald was looking for you. I guess you saw him over the weekend, huh?”
Regina rolled her eyes but smiled. “What did he tell you?”
“Just that you were visiting your family. Went to the hospital. That he saw you. I told him I’d let him know if you came in. Okay?”
The prospect of seeing Al lifted her spirits in spite of everything. “Okay.”
He arrived in minutes.
She said, sotto voce, looking past him to see where Rosa was, “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing!” Hands held up in surrender position. “She wanted to know if I saw you over the weekend. I said briefly. That’s all.”
Regina mouthed, “Such a busybody.” But she was smiling.
“How’s your dad?”
The urge to smile left her. “Maybe a little better. Everybody else left, but I’m going right back. ”
“I thought you couldn’t wait to get away?”
“Look, you know I’m not all that close to my family.”
“You love the house but hate everybody in it.”
“Are you laughing at me? You are.”
“No!” He was.
She pretended to be angry for a moment, then laughed with him. “I’m going to the Library of Virginia before I head back. I thought I’d walk.”
“I’ll walk with you.” When they hit the street, he said, “So what did they do?”
“They act like I’m this outrageous outsider who doesn’t even belong there.”
“All of them treat you that way?”
“Oh, not Mary. And not Frank.”
“Your uncle?”
“No. My brother.”
“I thought you had an Uncle Frank. He taught you to waltz.”
“Oh.” She rubbed her forehead and ran her fingers through her hair. “I told you my sister raised me. She’s twenty-three years older than me. I explained all this.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all that.”
“Well, the thing is, I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” It took him a minute. “Wait. How old were you again?”
“When she took me? Three? Four? After my sister drowned. Mary was like my mother. I thought she was my mother.”
“Who did you think your sister was, the one who drowned?”
“I knew she was Alice’s daughter. I don’t know! I didn’t think about it. I wasn’t supposed to talk about her. She was Eugenie-who-died, don’t-mention-her-in-front-of-Alice.”
“But when you got older, how could you not have known? You have all those brothers and sisters. Wouldn’t they say something?”
“They were gone! Look at their ages. Remember the war. Frank came home the summer Eugenie died, then he went off to college on the GI bill. Pace too. Edith was already married. She has a daughter who’s only a year younger than me. Bebe got married young. I saw them once or twice a year.”
“Did Mary or your real parents say you were Mary’s daughter?” Hands up again, he said, “I’m just trying to understand.”
She flashed on a memory—more than one—of Mary saying my baby and my little girl. She turned on him in a moment of exasperation. “Did you ever ask your mother if she was your mother?”
“Um. No.”
“I lived in the cottage with her. I called her Mimi. Alice would refer to her as your Mimi.” She huffed and shook her head. He started to ask another question, but she cut him off, incensed. “If they had deliberately tried to confuse me, they could not have done a better job. It wasn’t deliberate, and that’s almost worse.” She was steaming, walking fast enough that Al was hustling to stay with her. “And my father, he let it happen. He let Mary take me away. He let his wife give me away. I was his daughter, don’t you understand?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“Why didn’t he stop them?” She flung out her arm. “They just put their heads together, made up their minds what suited them, and disposed of me like I was a piece of furniture.” She mimicked them, tears starting in her eyes, “‘But don’t you want it for your own living room? Oh no, I don’t have room for it, I have all the furniture I need.’”
She stopped abruptly and searched her pockets. He produced a handkerchief.
Incredible. What young man these days had a handkerchief on him? She laughed a short, blubbering laugh and took it from him. She blew her nose wetly, turned the handkerchi
ef, and mopped at tears streaming down her face.
“Everybody called him Papa, including me, but I thought he was my grandfather. Everybody understood everything except me.” They walked on more slowly, and the old, familiar fury subsided.
Then Al stopped and waited until she turned to look at him. “I have another question.”
“What?” She waved. “I’m not angry with you. Go ahead. What?”
“Your sister was married.”
“Ugh. Yes.”
“Did you think her husband was your dad?”
“Never!”
“How could you not?”
She was suddenly exhausted. How could she make him understand when she didn’t understand herself?
“You didn’t call him Dad?”
“Never!”
“What did you call him?”
“Nothing. He was gone most of the early years, when I was little. It was just Mary and me. I didn’t think I had a father? I don’t know. Not everybody does have a father, you know. A lot of kids grow up without a father.” She gritted her teeth, waiting for him to challenge her. They had reached the State Capitol. Walking slowly now, lost in thought, Regina tried to see herself from the outside. Tried to weigh what her story sounded like. “Your life is your life. You don’t know what’s normal when you’re young. I knew other kids had fathers.”
Had she ever really asked? What had Mary said back in those days? She searched her memory. Half imagined, half remembered her realization that other children had fathers. Where’s my father? In Alaska.
“He was in Alaska a lot when I was young. Until I was ten. He came home every now and then, but he kept going back. He had a mission there.”
“She didn’t go with him?”
Regina shook her head, deep in thought. “She always said she couldn’t because of me, because Alice couldn’t take care of me.” She stopped. “I was too much for Alice. It was my fault, you see, that she couldn’t be with him. But you know what? She didn’t go because he didn’t want her to. He never cared anything about her.”
Al nodded, absorbing this.
“If I asked about my father, Mary would say he was in Alaska. So yes, I guess you’d say she outright lied to me. But I never believed it. I never once believed he was my father.”
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