by Rhys Bowen
“It depends if she was the secretive type or not,” Sid said. “And if she was worried that the other person might spill the beans to one of the nuns.”
“There aren’t any other girls at the convent who were close to Maureen then?” Gus asked.
“The nuns I spoke with weren’t entirely welcoming and seemed reluctant to let me speak to any of the girls. I was told there were no girls still there who knew Maureen. They don’t stay long. The nuns turf them out as soon as they are recovered from the birth. They only have a certain number of beds and more girls waiting for them than they can ever accommodate.”
“I’m sure of that,” Sid said. “A place like that would even be in demand for girls from good families who behave foolishly and find themselves pregnant. And their families would probably pay well for the privilege.”
“I don’t think good families would send their daughters to that convent,” I said. “It looked awfully bleak and forbidding.”
“So your plan is to go to Cortland and speak with the one girl who did know Maureen?” Sid asked.
“It is.”
“Where exactly is Cortland? The name is familiar but I can’t quite place it.”
“You remember,” Sid said. “It’s the stop before Peekskill on the train, isn’t it? We used to count the stations because we couldn’t wait to get back to Vassar.”
“Oh, yes,” Gus said. “You’re right, as usual. So not too far then. Only half an hour by train at the most.”
“Then we’ll come with you, Molly,” Sid said. “We love any excuse for a little jaunt.”
Oh, dear. Much as I loved my friends, having them along when I was trying to do my work was always a liability. They had never had to work and were inclined to treat any assignment as a big game. But I couldn’t say no. Besides, when Bridie related our escapades to Mrs. Sullivan a trip up the river together would sound harmless—and I could claim the young woman we went to visit was a friend of my friends.
“Wonderful,” I said. “I’d enjoy the company.”
“We can check on train times when we go home for lunch,” Gus said. “How long do you have, Molly? Do you have to get back to your mother-in-law’s by nightfall?”
“No, I’ve taken a room at the inn where you are staying. I told Mrs. Sullivan that I’d be joining you for a few days. So I’m free to do what I want.”
“Isn’t that perfect, Sid?” Gus said. “We have a chance to join Molly in another of her escapades. And we thought that when she got married she’d turn into a boring and respectable housewife.”
“I can’t say I ever really thought that,” Sid said.
They both looked at me and laughed. And I felt a wave of happiness run through me, too.
Seventeen
The next morning, after a hearty breakfast of sausage and flapjacks at the inn, we set off early for the train station. Bridie was excited at the thought of going on a train. She tried to restrain herself in the presence of two strange ladies, but was dancing around like a colt at the start of a horse race. Overnight, I had lain awake in my unfamiliar single bed, listening to the sounds of the river while thoughts raced through my head. An idea had come to me which I subsequently mentioned to Sid and Gus as we walked through the busy early morning streets.
“I have Maureen’s photograph with me. I should show it around at the station. Maybe someone might have remembered her catching a train.”
“You could show it around town too,” Sid suggested. “She could have found someone to give her a ride. Where exactly is the convent?”
“It must be more than a mile from here, on the far northern fringe of the town. Up on a hill.”
“So it would be a long walk down into town, especially for one who had recently given birth,” Sid said. “And I expect it’s quite a lonely road, isn’t it? Not much traffic?”
“It was quite lonely,” I said. “Certainly no buildings nearby and not much sign of houses beyond.”
“Then probably any passing cart would have offered her a ride down the hill,” Sid said. “We’ll have to find out who might go up and down that hill into town.”
“Splendid idea, Sid,” Gus said. “But Molly isn’t up to walking for miles at the moment. We should look into renting a little horse and buggy of some sort. Then we can go around the neighborhood at will.”
“You know how to drive a horse and buggy, do you?” I asked.
“Of course. Doesn’t everyone?” Gus looked surprised. “We always had our own little pony and cart to drive around the estate when I was growing up.”
“You led a very privileged life, dearest,” Sid said.
The station with its fretwork-carved roof appeared ahead of us, with the river beyond—early morning mist was curling over the river’s surface and hiding the far bank. The air was delightfully cool. After we had bought our tickets I showed Maureen’s portrait to the man in the ticket booth and asked if he might have seen her.
“When was this?” he asked.
“I think it must have been two months ago.”
He looked at me as if I was mad. “My dear young lady, do you know how many day-trippers come out this way during the summer? Trainloads of them. If I remembered any particular young lady she’d have had to be a corker or else have something wrong with her. This one looks nice enough, but I see a lot of pretty young ladies every day.” He looked at Sid, with her cropped black hair and black silk jacket. “I’d remember you, miss,” he said. “Would the young lady in the photograph have been wearing something out of the ordinary?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “She had been staying at the convent with the nuns. I expect she would have been wearing something demure and suitable.”
“With the nuns. One of those girls, huh?” He gave us a knowing look. “I’d have remembered her when she arrived then, but not when she departed.”
A discreet cough behind us hinted that someone else was now waiting in line. We thanked him and moved on. I tried my picture again with the porter and the man who blew the whistle, but got no reaction from either of them.
“You wait until later in the day,” the porter said. “This platform will be filled with young ladies, come up for the day from the city.”
“But this would have been early in the morning,” I said. “One of the first trains.”
He stared at the photograph again then shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. But then my wife always tells me I’m an unobservant kind of guy. I never even notice if she’s got a new hat.”
We heard the sound of puffing and the train approached, sending up a plume of dark smoke. Sid helped me up the high step into the compartment and the others clambered in beside me. Then with a lurch we set off, the puffing slow to start with but rapidly gathering momentum. Mist drifled across the track from time to time. Ships appeared and were swallowed into mist and as we traveled we watched it curl upward, as the sun’s heat warmed the air.
Sid and Gus kept Bridie informed as we proceeded northward. She looked fearfully at the great stone wall of the prison at Ossining and asked if the convicts ever escaped. Then the train came to a halt in Cortland. We were the only people to disembark, and we walked through a deserted station forecourt. This was a sleepy country town with only a few shops and cottages to be seen. We went into the nearest store, a pharmacy, and asked if they knew where the Robbins family lived. There was a young girl at the counter but an older man came forward to speak with us.
“You mean old Josiah Robbins?” he asked.
“We’re looking for a Miss Emily Robbins,” I said.
“That would be his granddaughter. She’s back from her travels now, so we hear.”
“And where would we find her?”
“They all live out on the family estate. About two miles from town. A fine house, it is. Honniton, that’s the name of it. But we call it the Ice Palace around here. Old Man Robbins had it built about thirty years ago. He made his money from ice, you know. Owned the ice lease for this stretch of river. Who�
��d have thought that a man could get rich from selling frozen water, eh?” He shook his head.
We asked about how we might find transportation out to their house and were told there was a livery stable in town where we might find someone willing to drive us. We went straight there and rented what looked like a rather rickety buggy. Gus assured me that she would be able to drive it splendidly and Sid looked confident in her abilities, so I hoisted Bridie up to join them and we set off. I need not have worried. The tired old nag was not capable of going beyond a walking pace and it took us a good hour to cover the ground to the Robbins estate. It was indeed a fine-looking house, a veritable Hudson mansion, built in the manner of a French château set amid manicured lawns, and I wondered at people like this sending their daughter off to the grim convent. They must have wanted to punish her very badly.
A servant came out at the sound of our approach and led the horse away while we went inside to a cool front hall with marble floor. A maid went off to summon her mistress and almost immediately we heard the tapping of heels on the marble floor and a thin woman in a severe gray dress came out to meet us.
“May I help you?” she asked, taking in the cut of our clothes and no doubt Sid’s cropped hair.
“I’m sorry to intrude but we were hoping to find Miss Emily Robbins here,” I said. “Is she at home?”
“She is,” the woman replied, “but I’m afraid she is occupied with another visitor at the moment. Her fiancé, Mr. Clifton, is here and they are going through wedding plans together.”
“Her fiancé, how lovely,” I said. “I hadn’t realized that she had become engaged.”
“Are you friends of hers?” the woman asked. “I don’t recall meeting you before.”
“You must be her mother. We are friends of a friend, who recommended that we give our best wishes to Emily as we were making a tour of this area,” I said, keeping as close to the truth as possible.
“So you’re not from these parts then?” Mrs. Robbins asked.
“We live in New York City,” I said. “I am currently staying with a family member in Elmsford.”
“And your connection with Emily?”
I was tempted to say that we met her abroad recently, knowing of the lie they had perpetrated about her. I wondered how she would handle that. But she saved me from having to come up with a lie by adding. “From school, I presume.”
“That’s right,” I said. “From school.”
At that moment there was the sound of feet on the marble floor and two people came down the long corridor toward us. One was a pretty, young dark-haired girl; the other a ruddy-faced, robust middle-aged man. When Emily’s mother had mentioned her engagement I had hoped that she might have been allowed to marry the father of her child. But I hadn’t expected this old and unattractive man. Surely he couldn’t be the one?
As he bent to give her a kiss on the cheek I watched her flinch and knew that he wasn’t. I guessed she was being rushed into marriage for respectability’s sake and to get her away from the house where her family found her presence repugnant.
“I’ll come for you in the morning then,” the ruddy man said. “And you can take a look at the furnishings for yourself. We can change the wallpaper if it’s not to your taste.”
Emily nodded, looking at us with interest.
“How kind you are, Mr. Clifton,” Emily’s mother said. “Emily, where are your manners. Thank your fiancé for his kindness.”
“Thank you, sir,” Emily muttered.
“And look here, Emily, my dear, you have visitors,” her mother said. “Apparently old school friends.”
I expected her to say she’d never seen us before in her life. I said quickly, “We weren’t exactly friends at school, but we shared a friendship in common with Maureen.”
“Maureen?” she asked, her eyes darting from one face to another.
“Your friend Maureen. From school. She asked us to pay a call on you, on her behalf.”
I saw a flicker in her eyes and she said. “Of course, I remember now. Maureen, from school.” She emphasized the last word. “And I do remember you now. You were all in the senior class when I first arrived and you were so kind to me. How nice of you to look me up again.”
“I’ll be off then, Emily, my dear. Good-bye. Until tomorrow,” her fiancé said.
“Good-bye, Mr. Clifton,” she said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Call him John,” her mother admonished.
“Good-bye John,” Emily called after him in a mechanical voice. “Thank you for coming over.”
Eighteen
As Emily’s fiancé went down the front steps she turned back to us. “Would you care to take a walk around the grounds? We have a pretty little lake and I know your young charge will like to see the ducklings.”
She didn’t wait for her mother to reply before she ushered us back to the front door and out into the sunshine. As soon as we were well clear of the house she took my arm. “You have news of Maureen?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting to hear from her. She promised she would write. Is she all right? Where did she go?”
I looked at her hopeful face and felt terrible. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve no news of her. That’s why I’m here.” Then I added hastily because I saw the agitation in her face, “My name is Molly Sullivan. I was asked by her family in Ireland to trace her and I’m trying to find out where she went when she left the convent.”
“Oh.” She looked so horribly disappointed. “Then you don’t know anything about her. I so hoped that you had come with a message from her. I don’t understand why she hasn’t tried to get in touch with me, unless Mama has been intercepting all my mail—which I wouldn’t put past her.”
Our feet crunched on the gravel as we walked along a well-raked path between rose beds; Emily and I in front, and the others following at a respectful distance behind.
“I went to inquire at the convent but they couldn’t tell me where she had gone. Only that she had run off without saying good-bye. However, I gathered that you were her friend. So I wondered if she perhaps had a secret plan and might have shared it with you.”
Emily shook her head. “I thought she was going back to those people. What was their name now?”
“The Mainwarings,” I said.
She nodded. “That’s right. Mainwaring. She didn’t want to. She said she hated it there, but it was better than nothing. And in fact Mrs. Mainwaring came to the convent the day before Maureen ran off. I know it was she because one of the sisters mentioned her name.”
“But she didn’t leave with Maureen at that time?”
“No. I don’t believe Maureen even saw her. She came to see the sisters. I do know Maureen was furious afterward and said Mrs. Mainwaring couldn’t be trusted.”
“Did she say why?”
Emily shook her head. “You have to understand that we had almost no time to ourselves. Everything we did was monitored by the sisters. We weren’t allowed to talk and Sister Angelique was always snooping. It was like being in jail.”
“I know a jail,” Bridie chimed in brightly. “It’s called Sing Sing. Were you there?”
“No, Bridie,” Gus said firmly.
I realized that there were aspects of this conversation that Bridie should probably not overhear, now that she was old enough to understand. “Now why don’t you go and see if you can find the ducklings,” I suggested.
“I think I can see them over there.” Bridie skipped off happily.
I gave Emily an apologetic smile. “I didn’t want her to overhear,” I said. “So you have no idea why Maureen ran off suddenly?”
“I was as surprised as anybody. I looked for her at breakfast that morning and I asked if she was not feeling well. Sister Jerome sent someone back to our dormitory and she had gone. Sister was furious.”
“Had anything happened that would have made her run away like that? Apart from not wanting to go back to the Mairwarings. Had she perhaps received a letter?”
“No
thing that I know of. We were both due to leave that week and we were both dreading it in a way. We couldn’t wait to be out of that place, but we really didn’t want to return to our previous situations. She promised she would come and see me and we joked about running off together and opening a tea shop in a small town, and then coming back to rescue our babies. She really loved her baby and she was furious at having to give it up.”
“Do you know who adopted the baby? Maybe she went there.”
“We were never told. Sister said it was better that we didn’t know; better to make a clean break. One moment our baby was with us, the next it had vanished.”
“So nothing happened just before she ran off? Nothing at all you can think of?”
She paused, staring out over the lake on which swans were swimming. “There was one thing,” she said carefully. “She had an awful row with somebody the day before she left. I heard her shouting. She said, ‘I’ve made up my mind. You can’t make me do it and I won’t. I won’t go through with it. You can’t make me. It’s cruel.’ Then a door opened and she came running out. I tried to stop her and ask her what was wrong, but she just pushed past me and ran away.”
“Was this row while Mrs. Mainwaring was there?”
“I’m not sure. It might have been.”
“And you didn’t know who she was arguing with or what the argument was about?”
“I never got the chance to speak to her again,” Emily said. “The next morning she had run away.”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “I had hoped that there was a happier reason—that the father of the child had come for her and they had run off together.”
“No. It wouldn’t have been that,” she said. “I know she wanted nothing to do with him. If any of us had had any hope, any other possibility, we’d never have gone to the convent. It is a place of last resort for those who have nowhere else to go.”
