by Blythe Baker
She rolled her eyes. “I mean that the jovial man shaking hands and delighting the guests is only for show. As soon as we are alone, Charles is solemn and silent. He spends his time staring into dark corners and ignoring my questions. It feels like he is a world away, and I’m not sure what has changed. He won’t tell me anything.”
“You’ve asked him directly?” I asked.
“Of course,” Catherine snapped, a bit of her old fire returning. “He tells me it is nothing, but I can feel that things are different. He looks at me the way he always has, but it feels like some secret force is draining the life from him, and slowly, he is slipping away.”
“Perhaps,” I said, approaching the next words cautiously. “You do not know Charles as well as you think you do.”
Catherine looked up at me, her eyes focused. Her words came out biting. “What do you mean?”
I took a deep breath. “Only that you’ve only known him a short while. Is there any chance he has always been distant and cold, but the first few weeks with you were different? Perhaps, this descent is less of a change and more of a fall back into old habits?”
I didn’t know that I truly believed this, but it seemed like a possibility worth looking into as much as anything else. Catherine, however, disagreed.
Without saying a word, she turned away from me, walked across the room, and opened her bedroom door. “If that is the most help you can offer me, I must ask you to leave my room immediately.”
I realized my mistake at once. I crossed the room and pushed the door shut. “It was merely a suggestion.”
“It was an insult,” she snapped.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. You know your fiancé better than I do, and I shouldn’t have suggested otherwise.”
Catherine crossed her arms, looking very much like Alice had only a few minutes ago downstairs, and looked down at the floor. “Does this mean you don’t know how to help me, then?”
“Absolutely not,” I said quickly. “In fact, I reached out to a contact for help just this morning.”
Catherine stiffened. “You told someone?”
“Nothing specific,” I amended. “They are helping me gather information. I haven’t revealed your plight to anyone.”
She took a breath, relieved, and then looked up at me. Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears and her lower lip trembled. “Do you think you can help?”
I reached out and grabbed her hands, folding them inside my own. “I will do my absolute best. I can assure you of that much.”
She stared at me for a moment as if to see if I was being honest, and then she nodded once. “Thank you, Rose. Now, could you leave me? I’d like to be alone for a bit.”
As soon as I stepped into the hallway, I heard a male voice. I was prepared to reach the top of the stairs and see Graham—defiant of Alice’s banishment—standing in the entryway. However, I was met with a man I did not know.
He was a young man who could not be older than his early twenties, and his red hair was combed starkly to one side, emphasizing the square shape of his face. Everything else about him was square, as well. Even his fingers—adjusting the tie around his neck—looked to be squared off on the tips. He shifted nervously from one foot to the other as Aunt Sarah spoke with him.
“You say you met Alice last night at the party?” She asked. “I must not have had the pleasure of meeting you, then.”
“Aunt Sarah,” Alice groaned, tugging on her aunt’s arm. “He has only come for tea.”
“And who is stopping him?” Aunt Sarah asked innocently, raising an eyebrow at the man as she stepped aside and motioned him and her bubbly niece into the sitting room. “There are treats of every kind and more in the kitchen, so eat your fill. I certainly shall.”
The man stepped into the sitting room and Alice pulled her aunt aside. “You aren’t coming with us, are you?”
“It is my home, dear,” Aunt Sarah reminded her sharply.
Alice looked like she wanted to argue, but thought better of it. Just then, she saw me standing at the top of the stairs. Her eyes widened.
“Not you, too,” she begged. “Please.”
Caught out, I moved quickly down the rest of the stairs. “I thought today was for us girls to get together. Men aren’t allowed, remember?”
Aunt Sarah beamed. “I do remember someone saying those very words when it came to the company of a certain Lieutenant.”
“That was—” Alice searched for the words and then groaned. “Different. He is here to see me, and I’m being rude.”
She disappeared into the sitting room, and Aunt Sarah grabbed my hand. “Are you sure you can’t stay? I plan to tease her ruthlessly.”
“As much as I want to see that, I’m afraid I have other business to attend to.”
She waved me on and then walked into the sitting room with an airy grace. “I have many childhood stories about our lovely Alice here. Did she have the opportunity to tell you about the time she lifted her dress above her head and showed my poor deceased husband her undergarments? God rest his soul.”
“I was only a baby,” Alice corrected.
I shut the front door softly, quite ashamed of how much I enjoyed Alice’s torment.
I didn’t really have any business to attend to, but staying inside the house felt stifling. As much as Graham’s constant presence had been an obstacle, it had also been a distraction. But now, left alone, waiting for Achilles to reach out with information that might or might not be helpful, I felt as though I was floundering.
Wandering the familiar streets of the city where I was born brought a sense of comfort that little else had in the previous year. Mingled with the comfort, however, was a sense of loss. I had been cast out of my home and life by a terrible act of violence as an orphan with no one in the world to claim me. In the years since then, I had survived, but nowhere ever felt as much like home as New York. Except, now that I was back, I couldn’t help but notice the changes; the many ways the city had carried on without me.
It was this desire for a sense of familiarity that led me from the mansions of Fifth Avenue to the industrial heart of the city to the low-class neighborhoods that huddled in the haze just beyond them. And there, I found a building that had not changed at all in the many years I’d been gone.
The Sisters of Sorrow Orphanage for Lost Girls cut a sharp silhouette against the sky. The spire of the chapel sliced across the sky like a sword, stretching so high I had to strain my neck to take it all in. The stone façade was dirty and dingy from the smoke of the warehouses nearby and it didn’t look like anyone was making any effort to keep it clean. When I lived in the orphanage, cleaning the stones by hand had been a punishment for naughty children. Either the sisters had moved on to worse punishments or the girls living within the walls now were better behaved than me and my friends had been.
I walked down the sidewalk, peering through the first floor windows to try and catch a glimpse of anyone inside, but saw no one. I even began to wonder whether the orphanage wasn’t permanently closed, but when I pushed on the wrought iron gate between the public sidewalk and the traffic-worn stairs that led to the double wooden doors, the gate swung open without resistance. So, I stepped inside.
My memories of playing on the front steps and in the small patch of grass in front of the chapel were vivid, and being back there seemed to bring the memories even more prominently into my mind. However, I could not see the faces of the other children. Despite spending all of my time with the other orphans, I could not remember any of their names, and I could not recall any of their faces. It was almost as if they had been wiped from my memory entirely.
“May I help you, Miss?”
I startled and turned to see a young woman in a nun’s habit standing on the top step, one of the wooden doors behind her standing open. Her hands were folded modestly in front of her, and her face was tilted down. As much as she tried to hide herself, her eyes were an arresting blue. At once, a flash of memory came to me. I saw the nuns leading lines of litt
le girls to meal times and chapel. I saw them standing in the doorway of the large room where we all slept, fingers held to their mouths to tell us to quit whispering and go to sleep.
And in my memories, I saw this nun’s face, though I knew it to be impossible. She was far too young to have worked at the orphanage while I’d been staying there.
“Miss?” she repeated when I failed to respond. She looked me up and down, taking in my fine attire. “Are you here about a particular child?”
“Oh, no,” I said, trying to think of the right words to say.
“Just a visit, then?” she suggested kindly, almost as if she was trying to help me. “Our girls are very well behaved. Any would make a fine addition to a family or home staff.”
I nodded and smiled. If I told the woman I had returned to the orphanage because I had once stayed there, she would want to know my name, and surely she would have questions about my accent. And if I told her I had no business there at all, she would be suspicious of my lurking.
“Would you care for a tour?” the woman asked. “I am Sister Elizabeth.”
“Yes, please,” I said, deciding at once that a tour would be the least suspicious thing I could do.
I followed Sister Elizabeth through the front doors and into the narrow entryway. The chapel doors stood straight ahead, thrown open for anyone passing by to stop and light a candle should they feel the urge. The Sister paused as if to allow me a moment in the chapel should I want it, but when I made no move to walk inside, she continued down the hallway towards where I knew the cafeteria would be.
She recited facts about the building and its history as we walked, discussing how many girls lived within its walls and their daily activities and curriculum, but I could hardly pay attention. Instead, I stared down at my fine Oxford heels on the scuffed floor, remembering the threadbare slippers I’d worn as a girl—the only pair I’d had to my name after my parents’ murder. I studied each window as we passed, remembering the hours I’d spent gazing from these very windows, wondering when I would be able to move beyond them and see the world.
Sister Elizabeth showed me the cafeteria where a small collection of girls were helping clear away the last remnants of lunch. Each of the girls looked up as I entered, their eyes on me like wolves startled in the woods, wondering if I was friend or foe. I smiled at them, hating that I might be giving any of them a false sense of hope.
I remembered the feelings that would rise in me when anyone came through the front doors, wondering if I would stand out. If they would see me, want me, love me.
In the end, I’d been given a position instead of a family. And though Rose Beckingham had become like family to me over time, the Beckinghams were never my parents. I never had the kind of love and comfort I’d dreamt of and longed for each night in my bed.
I blinked away the mistiness in my eyes, overwhelmed by emotions I had not dwelt on in a very long time.
As we left the cafeteria, Sister Elizabeth looked over at me and then down at the floor. Then, she looked up again, eyes narrowed. When I met her gaze, she flushed.
“Forgive me, Miss. It is only that you look quite familiar. Is this your first time here?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said with a smile, hoping to put the conversation to rest.
“Forgive me,” she repeated. “I’ve been here a long time. Since I was a girl, actually.”
My eyes went wide, and I was grateful Sister Elizabeth had not been looking at me to see my expression. Since she was a girl? “You lived in this orphanage?”
She nodded. “Since birth. The Sisters were the only family I ever had.”
Her blue eyes were bright and clear as the sky on a spring day, and I could almost imagine the blonde hair beneath her habit. It would be darker now, no doubt. Not the vibrant white blonde curls she’d had as a child. But still, I knew it would be blonde. I had recognized Sister Elizabeth not because she looked like any of the nuns who had served the orphanage during my time there but because we had lived there together.
Her bed had been four down from mine in the dormitory. She shared her desserts with new girls who came to the orphanage, trying to comfort them during their first day in a new place. She had given me half of her sweetbread the day I first arrived. I’d been too upset to eat it or anything else on my plate, but she had extended it to me nonetheless.
That memory had been lost to me before walking through the doors and seeing her, but now I wondered how I could have forgotten her at all.
Sister Elizabeth stared at me, her eyes narrowed and suspicious, and I shifted from one foot to the other nervously. I needed to leave. Coming back to the orphanage had been silly. A risk with no reward. She opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by a voice further down the hallway.
“Sister Elizabeth, do we have company?”
I turned to see another nun walking towards us. Her hands were folded behind her back, but her shoulders were broad, back straight. She walked with a kind of pride I’d only seen in one nun.
“Sister Martha,” Sister Elizabeth said in way of both greeting and introduction. Though, the woman needed no introduction. I remembered her well enough. She had been the woman who connected me with the Beckingham family. She had secured my position with them as a companion for their young daughter. “This is…” Sister Elizabeth paused and then chuckled to herself. “I just realized I never asked for your name, Miss.”
It was funny seeing Sister Martha now compared to the memory I had of her. As a child, she had been an ancient woman. She was so far removed from being a child that I wondered whether she could have ever been a child at all. Now, however, I realized she was no older than Aunt Sarah. When I lived in the orphanage, she must have only been in her forties or fifties. Certainly, not elderly. Then or now.
Which meant her memory would be sharp. Just as I remembered her and Sister Elizabeth, there was a chance she would remember me. A chance she would remember Nellie Dennet, the poor girl she had sent away to India only to have her blown to bits in a bombing. Had she heard of the accident? Would she have kept up with my placement so closely or bothered to remember my name? I had no way of knowing, and I was not going to see my entire life destroyed once again because of my own foolish mistake.
“I’ve just remembered,” I said, taking a step away, moving backwards down the hallway. “I have to be going. I have a meeting across town.”
Sister Elizabeth furrowed her brow and frowned. “You are leaving?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning my head to the side to keep them from getting a better view of my face than they already had. “I will return soon.”
“You are sure you must go?” Sister Martha asked, moving a bit faster towards me. Although I knew it unlikely, I thought she would rush forward and stop me from going.
“I am,” I said, walking away, glancing back over my shoulder once to wave. “Thank you for the tour, Sisters. Goodbye.”
I fled the building like I had wanted to many times in my youth, rushing down the stairs and back onto the public sidewalk. I looked over my shoulder several times before I was confident no one was following me.
Seeking familiarity, I’d returned to the locations of my youth and nearly exposed myself and my deception. In one instant, the life I’d spun for myself over the last eight months could have vanished. As I walked back towards luxurious mansions where Aunt Sarah lived, I swore that I would not be so foolish again. New York City had not been my home. It had been the home of Nellie Dennet, and she was dead.
12
Alice’s red-haired suitor visited again early the next morning and thoroughly distracted her from wedding planning, meaning, aside from her excited chatter and giggles, the house was quiet. Charles was busy with work, so Catherine stayed in her room except for meals, and Aunt Sarah sat at her desk and penned letter after letter to a local board she hoped to persuade to support the National Woman’s Party.
Since Achilles and I had made no formal arrangement in terms of when or h
ow he would reach out to me with the information about the Paris Peace Conference, sitting and waiting for him to make contact seemed fruitless, so I grabbed a book from Aunt Sarah’s extensive shelves and read for most of the day. My excursion to the orphanage the day before had made me cautious about venturing too far beyond the constraints of Fifth Avenue anytime soon. I did not want to go anywhere Nellie Dennet would be recognized.
Late that afternoon when the servants were beginning preparation for dinner, someone knocked on the front door. Alice, expecting her beau, rushed to the door before even the servants could get to it, and threw the door wide. She visibly deflated when she saw it was Graham Collins.
“It’s for you, Rose,” she said, huffing away from the door and dropping down on the sofa next to me. I put my book away and went to properly greet Graham.
“Sorry for my cousin’s manners,” I said, not mentioning that Graham had shown up once again without any prior notice, which was not the best display of fine manners.
“I thought Alice liked me,” he said from the side of his mouth, the words muffled. “Have I done something to upset her?”
“You are not a young American with red hair,” I said.
Graham’s brow furrowed in confusion, but he did not ask for any further explanation.
“To what do I owe the visit?” I asked, stepping aside to welcome him into the entrance hall.
He moved past me and then spun around quickly, extending a bouquet of flowers that had been hidden behind his back. “For you, Miss Beckingham.”
“They are lovely,” I said, smelling the bouquet as I accepted it. “But unnecessary.”
“I heartily disagree. Flowers are always necessary when asking a woman out on a date.” Graham’s face split wide in a smile. Suddenly, I noticed the nervous fidgeting of his feet and hands, the shakiness of his lips as he smiled. Graham was nervous. Quite nervous, in fact.
Alice appeared unexpectedly in the doorway. Apparently, her interest in Graham had once again been piqued. “You’re asking Rose on a date?”
