“Henri,” Vivienne repeats. Definitely a dream. If she had an aunt, this aunt wouldn’t know Henri. People are always getting mixed up in dreams.
The woman places her hand over Vivienne’s, and because it’s a dream, the guard lets her. It’s been a long time since Vivienne was on the receiving end of a gentle touch. It feels nice. She’s glad she decided to go along. It’s good to be in a happy dream.
“No one but your uncle knows where I am,” the woman says. “That you are . . . are in this place.”
The woman does seem real. Maybe it isn’t a dream. “What are you doing in my dream?” she asks to try to trick her.
But all the woman says is, “I wanted to tell you that you are forgiven.”
This makes even less sense. “The appeal was denied. It’s final. There’s no chance of a pardon.”
The woman winces and then catches herself. “No, Paulie, that is not what I meant. It is your father who has forgiven you.”
Vivienne narrows her eyes. “Paulie?”
The woman tilts her head, a vaguely familiar gesture, and looks at Vivienne with great compassion. “He is brokenhearted over what happened. He does not care if you were involved with Everard or not. He recognizes that you were a child who was duped either way. He blames himself for not understanding this sooner.”
It crosses Vivienne’s mind that this might have been important to her at one time, but now it means nothing. She’s Killer Girl, and this Paulie and her concerns are many lifetimes ago. If they ever existed. “I’m sorry he’s sad,” she says, because the woman is nice and it seems like the right thing to say.
“Do you want me to tell him where you are?”
Vivienne thinks about this, but there’s little she wants anymore. “I’m going to be dead soon,” she says. “So it’s probably not worth the bother.”
42
George/István, 1929
After the court’s decision confiscating the Bradley, he did everything he could to get it countermanded: cajoled and bribed and blackmailed, switched attorneys, even made Ada go begging to Quinton. But the appeal failed, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is claiming his collection for “the people.” They’ve already taken steps to wrest it from him. His new lawyer, no better than the old, informed him that the state has been authorized to begin crating the art as early as next week. He has to work fast.
He sends Ada to Ker-Feal, explaining that he’ll be consumed with cleaning up the aftermath of the litigation and that she should stay in the country until he’s able to join her. Which will be never. Ada will be so sad when her handsome young count disappears.
He calls in some favors, and three men arrive late one afternoon. They begin packing up the forty-two artworks he’s marked: the most valuable, the ones he’s most partial to, Paulien’s colonnade seven. There isn’t time to grab more than that, so he’s grabbing the best. The men need roughly six hours, and he’s arranged for a truck to be parked at the back entrance at eleven o’clock. The truck will bring the crates to a dock in New York, where they’ll be loaded onto a ship heading for Marseilles. Upon landing, they’ll be driven to the estate he just purchased in Monaco.
As soon as the paintings are on their way, István Bokor will vanish. When the staff arrives on Monday morning, they’ll find forty-two holes in Bradley’s ensembles, and he’ll be long gone, taking with him at least $10 million worth of artwork. No one beats him. He always wins in the end. Always.
And there’s a bit of frosting to sweeten the take. He knows where Ada keeps her cash and jewelry—and where she keeps the key to the box that holds them. It would be imprudent to leave such easy pickings behind. In her room he takes the key from the small glass dish on her dressing table where she foolishly leaves it. Then he pulls the box out from under the bed. Also foolish.
It’s large and solid, stuffed with money and jewelry and papers. Bradley didn’t believe much in banks, and apparently Ada doesn’t either. There has to be at least $10,000 in neat stacks. Perfect for his traveling needs.
He’s never seen her wear any of the jewelry. She adores the opal ring he gave her and claims it’s all the adornment she’ll ever need. These delightful trinkets were inherited from her mother and grandmother, much too large and gaudy for Ada’s taste and diminutive size. He, on the other hand, finds them much to his liking.
He goes to his room to retrieve a valise and begins scooping money and jewelry into it. When he completes this pleasant task, he flips through the papers: letters from her brother; a few from Bradley as a young man; a packet from a niece in England; an old photo of four unsmiling children, all with the same unfortunate, weak chin Ada sports; her father’s will; the deed to Ker-Feal. He’s about to return them to the box when he sees a postcard covered with large handwriting that looks like a child’s. A child? Ada never mentioned a child.
Mrs bradlee take big risk to my self and breakin the law. not enuf $. 1000 more or I do not do u no what on sunday. U hav a lot but not me. Tomoro or elce nothin. U no where. JJ
He has to read it three times before he understands what it’s saying—and what it means. Ada was being blackmailed. Hit up for more money. For some crime she commissioned to be executed on a Sunday. By someone with the initials of JJ.
This can’t be what it appears; Ada isn’t that cunning or devious. After yet another read, he realizes that there’s nothing else it can be. JJ was the truck driver—and Ada has a hell of a lot more pluck than he gave her credit for. He laughs out loud. The woman was too good a Catholic to get a divorce, but she was fine with committing murder.
The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes. She knew Bradley always went through that stop sign. She knew he would be returning to Merion late Sunday afternoon. She knew it would be dark and his headlights easy to spot, that a truck waiting with its own lights off would be invisible to Bradley as he came down the hill, the driver’s door an easy target. She also knew Vivienne, as Edwin’s beneficiary, would be the prime suspect.
A suspect Ada must have pressed the police to investigate and the state to prosecute—with the help of Thomas Quinton, the man who’d been pining for her for decades, whose loyalty she would reward with Edwin’s collection and, Quinton believed, her hand in marriage.
Ada once told him that until the trial, she had no idea Edwin was going to disinherit Vivienne or that he had cancer. So she saw endless years ahead of her in which Vivienne would rule the roost while she, Ada, would be the woman scorned and disregarded.
It’s a plan worthy of him. With one fell swoop, Ada got rid of the cheating husband and his girlfriend, freeing herself to marry her dashing young count. So that was what all the tears and carrying on were about. She wasn’t grieving for Bradley. She was feeling guilty because she had killed him.
43
Vivienne, 1929
It had taken the jury in Vivienne’s murder trial two days to return with a verdict. On both mornings of those terror-ridden days, she’d left the house spotless before she went to court, not a dish in the sink or an ashtray dirty. She did this to ward off disaster; if she acted as if she expected to be found guilty, then maybe it wouldn’t happen. Either that or she knew in her heart what the outcome would be. Whichever it was, when she turns the key and opens the door almost a year and a half later, everything looks calm and tidy, if dusty.
Being free is as unsettling, in its own way, as being locked up was. A blurry and wavering bubble has replaced her shell; she’s unable to see clearly through the undulating haze or to feel the edges of the world, but she isn’t completely cut off any longer. Which is good. It’s been very much very fast, and she still needs padding. She’s terrified that a policeman with handcuffs will come by at any moment and snap her reprieve out from under her.
When Ronald first came to the prison to tell her what had happened, she refused to believe him. It must be a trick—although she had no idea why Ronald would want to pull such a mean-spirited stunt. She always claimed Ada could have staged the accident just
as easily as she herself could, but she never believed Ada ever would.
As she waited through the two weeks it took Riverside to complete the process of releasing her, she finally came to accept that Ronald was telling the truth. Ada had been furious at Edwin and furious at her—and Ada figured out a way to punish them both while enhancing her own standing. By killing Edwin and setting Vivienne up for his murder, Ada got rid of them both, kept Vivienne from inheriting, and became the beneficiary herself, thereby leaving herself free to marry some much younger man, who was probably only after her money.
Vivienne places her coat on the back of the couch and opens all the curtains. She wanders through the house, running her fingers along the mantel, the kitchen counter, the bathroom sink, her bureau. She sneezes from the dust this disturbs and is delighted by it all.
She flips on the radio, and a song called “Orange Blossom Time” fills the room. The piano trills happily, and it’s as if the words are meant just for her: “Everyone’s happy and gay . . . Nature is smiling today.” She looks in the closets and there are her dresses. Her shoes. Her scarves. So many of them. She presses her nose to her bathrobe and breathes in. Her own scent still lingers between the threads. Vivienne’s scent, not Killer Girl’s.
The events that led to her release are as incredible as those that led to her imprisonment. Apparently the new husband found correspondence between Ada and the truck driver, John Johnston, indicating that Ada was behind the so-called accident. When the police approached her with the evidence, Ada immediately broke down and confessed; she was arrested straightaway. A cop who was there told Ronald that Ada was obviously relieved. Vivienne knows this relief will quickly dissipate in the face of Ada’s new reality: Riverside Prison.
Which is no longer her own reality. She’s free. She isn’t a murderer; she’s an unjustly imprisoned victim. With Ada’s conviction, she’s once again Edwin’s rightful heir, and the collection would be hers if there were a collection to inherit. All the artwork is now controlled by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and is headed to Philadelphia to become the Bradley Museum. Such irony. But she’s free, and that’s better than all the paintings in the world.
She feels for Edwin. Killed by his wife and bested by his worst enemies. Sure, he could be trying at times, hard nosed and stubborn, but he was a visionary who saw the future of art before almost anyone else did. He was also kind to her in his way, perhaps even loved her in his way. And perhaps she loved him a little, too.
She’s glad Edwin isn’t around to witness Quinton’s victory, to see everything he wanted for his collection foiled. A museum with little white cards and guided tours, most likely a gift shop. Vivienne shudders at the thought of his fury. But at least the collection will now be open to anyone who wants to see it, even if it’s not hers.
Vivienne goes into the kitchen and heats water for tea. She’s heating water. She’s drinking tea. In her very own house. Ronald’s firm paid for the upkeep from her accounts while she was in prison; the plan was to sell it after she was executed. Whatever meager monies remained were to be given to Sally McDonald.
After she was executed. Vivienne shivers and traces the crisscrossing lines of the blue-and-yellow tablecloth. After she was executed. If not for Ada’s husband, she’d still be rotting in Riverside, waiting for the electric chair to end her misery.
She would like to thank him, but she heard he left town immediately following Ada’s arrest, apparently grabbing a few dozen Bradley paintings and all Ada’s jewelry on his way out—just as Vivienne thought, only out for the money. She looks through the window, at her bedraggled garden, at the road heading east. Now she can go anywhere she pleases. No one can stop her from doing whatever she wants to do.
She opens the front door and peers down the street, searching for police cars. There are none.
Vivienne spends a month in Merion, mostly sleeping and eating and taking lots of baths. She’s grimy and skinny and weak, and she doesn’t want anyone see to her until she’s regained herself. She doesn’t visit anyone; there’s no one to visit except Sally, but she can’t bring herself to go near the Bradley. Nor does she write either Henri or her aunt. Her prison meetings with them are foggy at best, and she needs to be clearer, stronger, before she does.
In early November, she boards a ship and sets sail for Marseille, from where she’ll travel to Brussels. She sends Tante a telegram with her arrival date but asks her not to tell anyone else. Vivienne wants a few days alone with her aunt to catch up on everything that’s happened during the years she’s been away, to prepare herself for what’s to come.
She has a vague recollection of Tante saying something about forgiveness, but she can’t be certain. She’ll contact her father when she understands more about his possible reaction to her homecoming. If only she had the colonnade seven for him. If only she had the proof of her innocence that George’s arrest would have provided. These failures aren’t easy to accept, but berating herself will get her nowhere. Facing a death sentence changes your perspective, shifts your priorities. She will move forward, not wallow in regrets over the past.
Vivienne doesn’t let Henri know she’s coming either. As much as she longs to see him, she worries about his reaction to her reappearance, too, and wants to take one tumultuous reunion at a time. His letters stopped coming about six months ago, and she’d been relieved. She hoped he’d found a new life, perhaps a new love.
She feels differently now, but she’s prepared for him to spurn her. She was awful to him: claiming she didn’t love him, ordering him to forget her, never answering his letters. It will break her heart, but her battered heart has been through much and will somehow find a way to recover. She has been given a second chance, and she’s going to embrace it no matter who rejects her, no matter how many paintings she’s lost.
As the ship pushes closer to Europe, Vivienne finds herself wondering about George. She never heard from him after her arrest, nor had she expected to. He was in Philadelphia for only one reason, and once their deal went sour, he had no more use for her. He wanted the collection, and if she couldn’t get it for him, there was no reason to dally.
Unless he had someone else waiting to step into her shoes. Vivienne prowls the narrow wainscoted corridors of the ship, trying to pull the pieces together. Ada married a younger man, a man who ultimately turned on her. A man who left his elderly wife and disappeared when his plan failed. A man who snatched valuable paintings and jewelry while he had the chance. She grips the handrail for support. How had she not seen this before?
Her mind races along with the ship, and she steps out onto the deck. George’s scheme to use Quinton to pursue the lawsuit worked in his favor whether he married Ada or her. Marrying for money wasn’t one of his usual scams, but this reeked of him all the same: thinking many moves ahead of everyone else, an understudy in the wings, raking in millions of dollars that didn’t belong to him.
Vivienne stares into the churning waters. If George was Ada’s husband, then he was the one who found the correspondence and used it to free her. It doesn’t seem possible that a man with no feelings for anyone but himself could do something so selfless. But it’s difficult to argue with the fact that she isn’t in Riverside Prison, that there’s no longer an execution hanging over her head.
She vomits over the railing. She doesn’t want George to be the one who saved her. She doesn’t want to be grateful to him. Yet it was a remarkable gesture, especially given his nature, and it warms her to think that he cared enough about her to do such a thing.
But this doesn’t mean she doesn’t despise him, that she’s not devastated to have missed her chance at revenge. She wipes her mouth with her handkerchief, closes her eyes, lets the wind blow her hair back. Here she is, seven years after he walked away and left her with nothing, still loathing him, still deeply connected to him.
Vivienne planned to take the train from Marseille to Brussels by herself, but when the ship docks, Tante Natalie is at the bottom of the gangplank. It’s
November, yet the weather is mild, and Tante waves her hat as Vivienne comes down the ramp. They run into each other’s arms and both start to cry. Holding tight to Vivienne’s shoulders, Tante pushes her back, inspects her face. “You look wonderful, Paulie. Like yourself but even better.” She crushes Vivienne to her again. “Oh, oh, you feel so good.”
On the train ride across France, Vivienne tells her aunt everything that happened on her side of the ocean, and Tante Natalie explains what happened on hers. Tante can’t believe that such a travesty of justice could have taken place in America. Vivienne can’t believe that Papa has regained his financial footing. Although he isn’t nearly as wealthy as before, he and her mother are living in Germany in a charming home outside Stuttgart.
Léon is married, with twin boys. Franck is working with Papa and courting a pretty girl from Munich. And although the Mertens name still raises a few eyebrows in England, Belgium, and France—George apparently confined his Everard con to those three countries—after almost eight years, the affair is mostly forgotten. Or so Tante claims.
The air grows colder as they continue north, and the closer they move to Brussels the more nervous Vivienne becomes. Tante assures her that her father is no longer angry with her, that he and Franck will be ecstatic to see her, but adds that although her mother and Léon may take time to warm, eventually they’ll be a family again. Or so Tante claims.
She forgot that her aunt met Henri, that it was he who prompted Tante’s visit to Riverside. Vivienne had apparently mentioned Tante to him, and he’d found her, come to her house, begged her to talk some sense into Vivienne. Tante was enchanted by Henri, impressed with the depth of his feelings for Vivienne. Vivienne tells her she feels the same way about him, and she and Tante discuss what might be the best way to approach him. Should she send a telegram or a letter? Have Gertrude be the emissary? Or maybe she should just show up unannounced at his studio in Nice?
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