Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was the longest day of Evie’s life. Every pregnant woman, it seemed, had decided to have her baby, and Evie went from delivery to delivery, stopping only to take her orders from Dr Kingsley, who even let her handle a case of placenta praevia all on her own. Ordinarily she would have rejoiced at the victory. Today she just wanted to get it done so she could go and see Thomas. She didn’t finish until well after six o’clock, and as she hurried back to her locker to change, she hoped that Thomas still had a habit of working late and that he hadn’t dashed off to spend the evening with Winnie.
Then she realised that all of the clothes she had with her were stained, even her home clothes. It was as common a problem for her as chalk marks were for teachers, but decidedly more wearing. She rummaged around in her locker for anything else to wear and her hand touched a bag right down the back. She reached into the bag and pulled out a dress.
It was Lil’s black Chanel dress, the one Evie had worn to dinner at Charles and Viola’s house on the night Charles had tried to blackmail her. Evie had found it among her things when she’d moved out of the boarding house, and had taken it to be laundered; then she’d evidently forgotten about it, and it had sat in her locker at the hospital ever since. Now she slipped it on and felt the silk chiffon trail lightly down over her skin like Thomas’s hand used to. She combed her hair and re-applied her lipstick, then hurried for the train.
The bottom of town had never seemed so far away. Evie counted down every stop until Rector Street, where she jumped off and turned onto Wall Street.
A building on her right bore a familiar name: whitman’s. It was spelled out in bronze letters above the door, elegant but not flashy. The door was wooden, large and solid, implying that once you’d invested your money behind it, there it would stay, doubling, quadrupling, increasing one hundredfold as money seemed to do in these crazy times.
The doorman was still there. So Thomas might be too. Evie stepped inside, glad of the Chanel, her ticket to entry to a place like this.
‘I’m here to see Thomas Whitman,’ Evie found herself saying to the secretary, who was packing up her bag to leave.
The secretary looked at her watch, doubt written all over her face. ‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No. But tell him that Evie …’ she hesitated, ‘that Evie Lockhart is here.’
‘Please take a seat.’
Evie sat in an armchair, antique of course. The clock in the corner ticked away the minutes of waiting like a bored pair of heels in a dance hall. In the end, Evie stood and walked over to it, just to have something to do. A seashell was carved into the wood below the face. She reached out a hand to touch it, to feel the wood smoothed by polish in the same way that a shell might be smoothed by the sea.
‘It’s a Newport tall clock.’ Thomas’s voice spoke behind her.
‘Oh.’ An insignificant word, but it seemed to shout out the differences between them – that Thomas Whitman could identify a Newport tall clock whereas Evelyn Lockhart just wanted to reach out and touch the shell. She almost lost her courage, but then she turned and her breath caught at the sight of him. He was improved, if that was possible, by the previous eighteen months, and he now looked even better than he did in her dreams. Thomas’s face registered nothing at the sight of her. She might have been any client coming to him for help with a business transaction.
‘This way,’ he said, and he led her to an elevator, where neither said a word, and then into a large room with a window looking out onto the street. In fact, the view stretched all the way to the harbour, and Evie couldn’t help but walk across to the window, to see the vast comings and goings of the city, as well as to hide her face, which she thought must plainly show how flustered she felt.
‘You’ve been busy?’ Thomas finally spoke and she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, referring to the fact that she’d stopped writing to him with no explanation, or if he was asking a genuine question. She chose to believe the latter.
‘The boom’s good for business,’ she said. ‘I hate to think what will happen to the children when the money stops coming.’
‘Which it will. Tea?’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘So you’re a doctor now?’
‘Yes. A resident at the Sloane.’
‘You got what you wanted. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’
Evie was still standing beside the window and Thomas was standing behind his desk. The physical distance was several feet, but the emotional distance Evie heard in the word congratulations was immense. It was the same tone he’d used years ago in Concord when he’d said that Alberta was lovely, and Evie had hoped that a man in love with her would speak with more passion.
But she’d come all this way and she was in the part of town where deals were made, so she offered up her own promise to the city of New York, which was the only God she believed in: that if Thomas Whitman forgave her, she would … what? Cry, at the very least. But the city had had enough tears given to it over the years, and it sure didn’t need any more of hers.
She turned her back on the view, on the drift back and forth of the water and the ships and the people. ‘I saw your mother yesterday.’
‘She said she’d seen you.’
‘I had two children with me.’
‘She mentioned that too.’
‘She thought I must have married someone. You have to be married to adopt children.’
Thomas bent down to pick up a pen, eyes shielded from her so she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
‘I’m not married. Lil and Leo are officially the adoptive parents.’ Evie chose her words carefully. ‘They knew how much I wanted Mary. She’s the child from Concord. So they signed the papers for me, but the children live with me, as my daughters.’
‘Why are you here, Evie?’ He still said her name like nobody else in the world, like a caress. But he was studying the pen, rather than her.
‘I didn’t want you to think I’d gone off and married somebody else,’ she said.
‘It’s no concern of mine.’
‘I hoped it might be.’ Evie summoned up every bit of fortitude she could muster to help her say the next words. ‘I was … shocked … when I heard about your engagement.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I love you.’
‘Any other reason?’
He looked at her, at last, but it might have been better if he hadn’t. His expression was perfectly composed, as if neither her presence nor anything she’d said had affected him at all. Whereas everything about being in a room with Thomas was making her hands and her voice shake. What he’d asked – any other reason? – was such a short and simple sentence, but the hurt it inflicted was immense. Evie knew she had to keep going, to take the blows that were her due.
She took a step towards Thomas. ‘What better reason is there?’
Thomas remained behind his desk. ‘What’s changed, Evie? Evidently you discovered that you didn’t love me when I was in London, because you returned all my letters and disappeared. And yet now you say you do? I want to love someone who’ll stay true to me, no matter what. Someone who trusts me as much as I trusted you.’
‘It wasn’t that I didn’t love you.’
‘Then what was it?’ Thomas stared at her, waiting.
Evie couldn’t risk it. If she told him he was Lucille’s father before he said he loved her then she would never know what his feelings really were, and what was obligation. She remained by the window; the sky had shifted from day to night behind her, passing through its gloomiest phase in that sliver of time when the sun had almost gone but the lights of Manhattan hadn’t yet turned on. New York was now incandescent, its sequined dress on, beads lustrous, smile resplendent. But the brilliance faded at Thomas’s office, which was lit only by a desk lamp, so that darkness and shadow tapestried the walls, carpeted the floors and seeped into every space between. Evie was silent.
‘So it
was nothing,’ Thomas said.
‘I shouldn’t have come.’ Evie walked over to the door, knowing he wouldn’t reach out and stop her.
In the train on the way home, Evie didn’t cry. When she collected the girls, she simply shook her head at Lil but did not speak. Back at the apartment, she bathed the girls, kissed them and put them to bed. At last they were asleep and she could take her phony smile off, be the blank and empty thing she really was now that she knew she’d squandered her beloved.
When Evie woke the next day her limbs were heavy and it was so hard to shift her body out of bed. She tried to convince herself she was falling ill, but she knew that her body was immured in the sadness she’d told her heart not to feel.
It was over. Brutally and finally over. Thomas was marrying Winnie.
She sat on the edge of the bed until the ache lessened. Until she could stand up and open her arms to Mary and Lucille, who were excited that their mother had a rare two days off work and could spend time with them. Evie would let their smiles wash over her and scour away her grief so that she could face the world again as if nothing had happened.
The girls wanted to make waffles, and Evie sat with them at the table and helped stir the mixture, trying to concentrate through the clouds in her head.
Then the door buzzed, and Evie was surprised to find her sister on the doorstep. Unusually, she was by herself. ‘Vi. What are you doing here? Where’s Emily?’
‘Auntie Vi!’ called the girls, rushing over to hug their aunt as she came into the kitchen.
Viola kissed them both. ‘Emily’s with her Grandma Mabel. And I’ve brought you girls a beautiful puzzle.’ She pulled a parcel out from behind her back. ‘Why don’t you two go into the other room while I talk to your mama.’
The girls toddled off, excited to open their present.
‘Now everyone knows you have two adopted children,’ Viola said.
Evie sank into a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Mrs Whitman told you.’
‘She told Thomas as well.’
‘I know.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
Evie felt her damn eyes fill again with tears. She didn’t answer because she couldn’t, not without howling.
‘Oh, Evie.’ Viola sat down opposite. ‘Did you tell him?’
‘What?’
Viola looked at her steadily. ‘About Lucille.’
Evie moved away from her sister and stood at the small window that looked out onto the street. It was quiet outside; most people were probably still abed, enjoying the lazy Saturday morning. Evie wished she was still asleep as well, blissfully oblivious to yesterday’s conversation with Thomas. ‘You know Mary’s the baby from Concord?’ she fudged.
‘I thought as much. Thomas did too. That’s what he said to Mabel.’
‘But do you know who Mary really is, Vi?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s our half-sister. Father is her father too.’
Evie succeeded in silencing Viola for almost a minute. Eventually she said, ‘I think I need coffee.’
‘Me too.’ Evie busied herself with the cups and added, unsure if Viola’s silence had been from shock or disapproval, ‘It’s not Mary’s fault.’
‘Oh, I know! It’s just … unimaginable. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Father asked me not to. You were pregnant and I didn’t want to upset you. I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.’
‘So that’s why you adopted her.’
‘I had to.’
Viola stood up and hugged her sister. ‘I can’t believe you did everything for Mary by yourself,’ she said in awe, eyes wet with tears. ‘I could have helped.’
‘Charles would have made all our lives miserable if I’d involved you. It was easier this way.’
‘You know I saw Father with a woman once? It was years ago, before we both left Concord. I was in Boston with Mother. She’d gone to meet a friend and I was shopping for clothes. Father and the woman were in a restaurant, an out-of-the-way place along a lane, and I’d gone down there to retie my bootlace. She was young. And Father looked young too. He seemed attentive, as if whatever she was saying to him was captivating. I’d never seen him look like that and it frightened me. I put it out of my mind. Until now.’
‘What did the woman look like?’
‘She had red hair. That’s all I remember.’
‘Mary’s mother had red hair too. But if he was so captivated, why did he let her die?’
‘I don’t know.’
Evie put two cups of coffee on the table and sat down in her chair. They’d never know, she supposed, whether her father had just been taking what he could get from Rose or whether he’d felt true affection for her. Evie had always supposed it to be the former, because if he’d ever had a shred of feeling for Rose, he’d made a mockery of it by everything that came after.
Viola sat down too. The sisters were silent for a time until Viola said, ‘I came here to say that, now everyone knows you have two adopted children, you should come out with us tomorrow. I’m having a little celebration for my birthday. No more secret visits. One doesn’t turn thirty every day.’
‘I can’t do that –’
But Viola continued talking, the hint of a smile on her face. ‘You should have heard Charles when he discovered you had two children and that I’d known about it all along.’
‘How did you explain my being able to adopt them to the Whitmans?’
‘I said that, not being content to stop up your bleeding heart by being a doctor, you’d asked some married friends to help you adopt Mary and another stray. That’s what you’d always told me. Isn’t it the truth?’
Evie heard the question Viola was asking, and prevaricated again. ‘I can’t come to the party. Not with everyone there.’
‘It’ll be me, Emily and Charles, plus you and the girls. No one to worry about. And it’s not at home. It’s at the Plaza. Afternoon tea.’
‘What about Charles?’
‘He’ll be on his best behaviour – because if he isn’t, I’ll make sure his mother and father find out about his latest mistress.’
Evie smiled. An afternoon tea party at the Plaza was exactly the sort of thing she thought Mary and Lucille would love. ‘Lucille’s table manners mightn’t be up to the Plaza’s standard, but we’ll come.’
Viola actually squealed with pleasure, and Evie laughed to see her sister so happy.
‘See you tomorrow at one,’ Vi said as she slipped out the door.
I hope I’m not doing the wrong thing, Evie thought. Going out so publicly with the girls to meet people so closely connected to Thomas. But the girls loved their cousin and deserved to spend time with her. Rather than worrying, she decided she would try to turn it into a celebration. Something to look forward to.
She went to find the girls. ‘Let’s make those waffles. Then we’re going shopping for new dresses to wear to Auntie Viola’s party.’
The girls’ cries of delight made Evie feel better. Her children would get her through this; they would help her to forget, show her there was still joy to be found even in the midst of such anguish. After breakfast they got dressed and Evie took them to Macy’s, where they chose party dresses in frilly, flouncy white. When they put them on, they looked up at Evie with smiles almost bigger than their faces could hold.
‘Thank you, Mama,’ Mary said.
Evie sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around her children. Her cheeks were wet and Mary looked at her with concern, but Evie said, ‘They’re happy tears.’ It was half true. Some of the tears were from happiness, and some were for the other pair of arms that should have been wrapped around the three of them. Thomas’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘We’re going to that nice hotel opposite Central Park. The one you said looked like a palace,’ Evie said to Mary the next day as she hailed a cab.
‘Will there be cake?’ asked Mary, while Lu
cille mumbled, ‘Yum, yum, yum,’ and tried to run off after a pigeon just as Evie had succeeded in flagging down the taxi.
‘Yes, there’ll be cake. And probably lots of it,’ said Evie. She picked up Lucille and stuffed the little white ball of froth securely into the taxi between her and Mary.
The taxi swept them down Fifth Avenue, past Tiffany & Co., Lord & Taylor, B. Altman and Company, Saks, Bergdorf Goodman, Best & Co., Gorham, and Arnold Constable. Everyone on the sidewalks seemed festive that afternoon, hung with shopping bags and smiles and with a skip in their step. Crowds of ordinary people, high on the boom-time promise of living in the city that housed the tallest building in the world, an accomplishment that made them feel as if everyone in New York could have their feet on the ground and their head in the sky all at the same time. Evie watched a young couple walk out of Tiffany & Co., faces aglow like the diamonds they might have bought. No shattered hearts there.
By the time they reached Fifty-Ninth and the taxi swung around the Grand Army Plaza, Evie had fixed her smile back on.
‘I’m going to walk up the steps like a princess,’ said Mary.
Evie laughed. ‘You do that.’
She stood back and watched as Mary took her skirt in her hands, held it out like a ballerina’s tutu and slowly ascended the stairs with perfect posture and grace. She noticed that an elderly man had stopped still on the steps and the woman at his side was urging him on. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she was saying. ‘We look like a pair of tourists stopped out here.’
The voice was as familiar as Evie’s own skin. Her mother’s voice. And then she looked properly and saw that the man staring at Mary was her father.
‘The little girl reminded me of … Evelyn,’ he said, at which point Evie thought it’d be best to show her hand.
‘Hello, Father. Mother.’
Her father looked as if he was about to cast a kitten right on the front steps of the Plaza.
‘I think we’d be more comfortable catching up inside, which is obviously what Viola intends for us to do,’ Evie said. She wanted to kill her sister for springing such a surprise on all of them, but wasn’t that so like the Viola she’d grown up with. Anything to put Evie at a disadvantage. And here was Evie thinking Viola was mellowing, that she wanted them to be real sisters. Real sisters would not do something like this!
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