The Forgotten Room

by Karen White

  The date at the top read January 30, 1893. My darling Olive it began. My eyes read quickly, each word more painful to read than the last, the ink heavier and darker as the author wrote, as if his grief were pouring out onto the paper along with the black ink.

  “Farewell, my love,” Cooper and I both read out loud as we reached the end, the words soft and sacred.

  Cooper carefully placed the letters in the rear of the small stack, leaving another letter, this paper thicker and heavier than the last, the handwriting bolder and crisper, lacking the artistic flourishes of the first writer, and written nearly thirty years later.

  Dearest Lucy, it began. My gaze quickly scanned to the bottom of the page. I love you, Lucy. Always.

  “My father’s handwriting,” Cooper said softly. “John Ravenel.”

  I glanced away, not sure I could read it, knowing it was a love letter to my mother from a man who wasn’t my father. But I forced myself to read every word of John’s plea to convince my mother to move to Charleston and be with him.

  “I don’t understand why she didn’t go with him. There was nothing here for her except for Philip Schuyler, and I know he wasn’t her first love.”

  He let the letters slip from his hands and I looked at the papers scattered around us, the detritus of ill-fated love.

  I clasped my fingers together on my lap. “Olive was Harry’s muse. His great love. And even though they both married others and had their own families, a piece of their hearts always belonged to the other.”

  I stood so I could think clearly. It was too hard with Cooper so close. “And my own mother must have orchestrated her entire relationship with my father so she could somehow claim what she thought was hers, a mistaken belief that she was part of the Pratt legacy because of her mother’s love affair with Harry Pratt.” I looked up as a thought occurred to me. “She probably even wondered at least at some point if she could be their daughter.”

  I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, as if I could erase the memory of the mural and the necklace. And my mother’s constant search for something that could never be hers. “I wonder . . .” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I wonder if my mother ever loved my father. If he ever really knew who she was.”

  John stood and took my hands. “Were they not happy? Did you never see her laugh?”

  “No, I mean, it wasn’t like that. My father always made us laugh. He loved us so much, and never stopped trying to make her happy. She must have loved him, in a way. He was just never . . . enough.”

  He let go of my hands and walked toward the window, his movements agitated and jerky, like a flag in high wind. “Why didn’t our parents marry?” He sent me a wry look. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad they didn’t. But why? What happened?” His gaze fell on the black opening behind the bricks. “Maybe we missed something . . .”

  His words were forgotten as he walked back toward the fireplace and reached his hand into the dark hole. He screwed his eyes shut for a moment as his hand traveled from corner to corner of the secret compartment, a blind man reading Braille. Then they popped open in surprise as Cooper withdrew something small from the hole behind the bricks.

  “What is it?” I asked, but I could tell even from where I stood that it was a black velvet ring box.

  Our eyes met as he walked back to the bed and sat down. After a brief hesitation, he lifted the hinged lid. I had already guessed it was a ring, maybe even a valuable one, but I’d never imagined it would be as stunning as the bauble staring up at us from its velvet cushion. The large brilliant-cut diamond nestled in a platinum setting, with tiny diamonds surrounding the larger stone like a queen and her ladies.

  “It’s at least three carats,” Cooper said, his voice almost reverential.

  I sat down next to him and reached for the ring. Gently I lifted it from the box, admiring how the designer had made sure that the view from any angle would show off the exquisite artistry of the ring. “There’s something inscribed on the inside,” I said, bringing it closer to my face, then reading the tiny letters out loud.

  To O from H—Always—1-1-93

  “He meant to marry her,” I said quietly, my heart stretching and pulling inside my chest, an old heartache brought to life again.

  “But she married someone else instead, not even two weeks later.”

  I couldn’t look at the ring anymore, a talisman for broken hearts and an always that didn’t mean what it should. I stuck it back in the box and closed it, then shoved it back into Cooper’s hands. “You should take this—it’s a family heirloom. You can give it to your fiancée.”

  He regarded me for a long moment, his eyes narrowed and dark as if I’d just delivered a physical blow.

  “So here we are,” he said finally. “Back to the place where it all began. It’s like fate has brought us together, to find the happy ending our parents and grandparents so desperately sought.” He shoved the ring box into his pants pocket, then reached for my hands.

  I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go.

  “Don’t you see, Kate? We were meant to be together. From the moment I saw you, I knew. It’s always been you.” He let go of my hands so he could gently cup my face. “I love you, Kate. And I want us to be together. Come with me to Charleston. You can set up your own medical practice, be the best doctor you can be. And be my wife, the mother of my children. Please, Kate. Let’s make all that came before us make sense. Say yes.”

  How easy it would be to say yes, to give in to everything I’d spent a lifetime fighting. I was an independent woman, my independence hard-won. I knew too much of my grandmother and mother now to believe that love lasted forever, that it would sustain you through an entire lifetime. Wasn’t the fact that Cooper and I were here testament to that simple fact?

  I pulled away and stood. “And what about Caroline? You are engaged to be married, or have you forgotten? Surely you must have loved her enough at some point to want to marry her. Is she not enough for you now? And how would you know if I’m enough for you? That you won’t always be looking beyond me for someone else?”

  He stood, too, but stayed where he was. “Kate, I love you. I think I’ve loved you my whole life. Please. Don’t do this. Don’t turn your back on something that’s taken three generations to make right.”

  I shook my head, seeing my mother’s face as we stood on the sidewalk in front of this same building all those years ago, her expression one of disappointment and regret. Where had I heard that before? “No,” I said. “I am not Olive or Lucy. I am my own woman who doesn’t need a man in her life to survive. I don’t want to end up like them. If anything, their mistakes have been the best education for me.”

  He took a step toward me. “Love isn’t a mistake. But I know true love is rare enough that when you find it you fight for it. Marry me, Kate. Come back to Charleston with me and be with me for the rest of our lives.”

  I began backing up toward the door. “I can’t.” I shook my head, my eyes blinded with unshed tears.

  He didn’t follow me, but his words were strong enough to hold me back. “Tell me you don’t love me and I will let you go. Just tell me that you don’t love me.”

  I saw him through the haze of tears, imagined I could see his eyes, which were the color of winter grass. And I remembered my mother and her constant sadness. Disappointment and regret. I opened my mouth and let the words fall out before I could call them back. “I don’t love you.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Maybe that was what being struck by a bullet was like, how you didn’t know you’d been hit until you began to bleed.

  “Good-bye, Cooper.”

  I didn’t run away this time, but walked steadily and purposefully out the door. He didn’t follow me, nor did I expect him to. I’d told him what he wanted to hear, what I needed to say so that I could walk away. If only my heart hadn’t betrayed
me by remaining back in the forgotten room, in that one place where our story had really begun more than fifty years before.

  Twenty-nine

  NEW YEAR’S DAY 1894

  Olive

  For the second time in her life, Olive was awake when the clock chimed midnight on the thirty-first of December, and the old year slid irretrievably into the new.

  She hadn’t meant to be awake. She had hoped that 1894 would steal in through the window while she slept, silent and unnoticed, but this was the first lesson you learned as a new mother: Small babies have little, if any, regard for the wishes or convenience of their parents.

  So Olive cradled Lucy’s downy head to her breast and listened to the soft chime of the clock on the mantel, and as each note dinged gently into the air, her eyes began to sting and her fingers to shake. (That was another lesson: In the small hours of the morning, while a baby suckled at your breast, you felt as if you were the only two beings alive in the universe, and this loneliness magnified each emotion—whether joy or sorrow or wonder—into something a hundred times greater than your ordinary feelings.) Before Olive’s eyes, the movement of Lucy’s urgent little mouth started to blur, and a drop fell on that round cheek, just as the twelfth chime struck, and the room went quiet.

  And that was that. Lucy went on nursing, not missing a beat, and the earth presumably continued to spin on its axis. Olive lifted a finger and traced the delicate curve of Lucy’s ear, the most beautiful thing in God’s creation, and slowly the tremors died away into her middle, deep inside, where no one could see them. As it should be.

  Where was Harry at this moment? (She could now ask that question to herself without bursting into tears and perplexing poor Hans.) If she closed her eyes, she could feel him, wherever he was. The other side of the world, perhaps. No one knew where he had gone, and the Pratt house now stood empty of life, waiting for the auction that would empty it of objects, too. That was according to the newspapers, which had also covered, in breathless detail, both the wedding of Miss Prunella Pratt to Mr. Harrison Schuyler in October, and the financial ruin of Mr. Henry August Pratt the following month. Apparently he hadn’t taken Olive’s advice and divested of those Philadelphia & Reading shares, after all.

  Or perhaps he had been too distracted with grief for his sons: one dead and the other missing.

  Missing. But Harry wasn’t missing, not really. He was right here, wrapping his arms around her, looking down over her shoulder at Lucy’s hungry movements. She’s beautiful, just like her mother, he whispered in Olive’s ear, just before he placed a kiss on her temple.

  She could actually feel that kiss, warm and soft on her exhausted skin.

  You’re a wonderful mother. I am so proud of you.

  And then, even more quietly: I forgive you.

  No, Harry hadn’t gone away at all. He was still there, inside her head. Occupying the chambers of her heart.

  Lucy’s eyelids were drooping now, and the rhythm of her suckling began to slow. The lamp flickered over her skin. She was five weeks old, and just awakening to the extraordinary world around her. She liked the sounds and sights of the bakery. Olive would sometimes nurse her there, because it was so warm, and Hans’s face would light up at the sight of his daughter. He would reach out his floury hands and cradle her in the crook of his massive elbow, and she would stare up into his delighted face and brighten, too, just like the Christmas tree that stood in the parlor, decked with candles. Already Lucy adored her father, just as Olive had adored hers.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Olive’s husband stirred in the bed behind her. The springs creaked under his weight, and his voice emerged from somewhere inside all those blankets, blurry with sleep. “Meine Frau? Wo bist du?”

  “Right here,” she answered. Inevitably, she had picked up a little German over the past several months, just enough to understand her new relatives when they spoke among themselves, though she always addressed them in English. “With Lucy.”

  “Ah, there she is. Meine kleine Schönheit.”

  “Your very hungry little beauty. But she’s almost finished, I think.”

  Hans yawned gigantically. “Bring her here, when she is done.”

  Lucy’s mouth dropped away at last, and Olive lifted her carefully to her shoulder. The wind rose at once, thank God. Some nights Olive felt as if she were patting Lucy’s tiny back forever, while she staggered with fatigue, mindless, almost falling asleep where she stood. And still patting, patting, the way a snake keeps moving after its head is cut off.

  She tucked her breast back into her nightgown and rose from the chair. Hans lifted the blankets, and the warmth of his body seeped out from within, scented with soap. Her husband had clean habits, washing himself with a cloth in the morning and bathing at night before bed. To take away the yeast and the flour, he said, and Olive was grateful for that. She sank into the mattress, and Hans’s large hands stole into her arms and lifted Lucy away.

  “Ah, meine kleine Tochter, meine kleine Schönheit,” he crooned, settling her in his lap. He slid one finger into her tiny fist, and poor Lucy could hardly encompass the thick digit, though she tried her hardest.

  Olive smiled and slid under the covers, on her side, facing the two of them. At first, she had been repelled by her husband’s giant size, by the heat of his body as they lay together in their marriage bed. On her wedding night, she had felt crushed under his heaving body, and when he had fallen into snoring unconsciousness afterward, one enormous arm thrown across her middle, she had wept so hard and so silently, the tears had rolled down her temples and wet her hair.

  But she had grown used to him. They hadn’t had a honeymoon, instead plunging right into their busy life above the new bakery in Brooklyn—this tremendous opportunity that could not be delayed—and he was so delighted with his good fortune in marrying her, so kind and attentive, so unexpectedly good-humored (sometimes he brought her to tears with his jokes), that eventually she hadn’t minded his heavy, exuberant lovemaking, and his sleeping body had become like a steady and reassuring rock by her side, when she thought she might die inside her abyss of loss. When she told him she was pregnant, he had actually cried with joy.

  And now here they were, a little family, nestled in their warm bed this frigid January morning. This was Olive’s life, this was reality, and she would make the best of it. Lucy was making little cooing sounds now, looking up into her father’s worshipful face in delight, and Olive reached over to tickle her tummy, and that was when it happened: Lucy’s little baby lips curved into her very first smile.

  “She smiles!” Hans exclaimed.

  “She’s smiling at you,” said Olive, and in that moment, because he had made her daughter smile for the first time, Olive loved her husband.

  Hans lifted Lucy up in the air, laughing, and Lucy’s newborn smile grew even wider. Her lips parted, and for a fragile instant Olive thought she might laugh, too.

  “Now, enough of that,” Olive said. “She’ll never go back to sleep.”

  “Ah, I am sorry.” He lowered Lucy to his lap, clucking and soothing, and Olive thought she heard a familiar voice next to her ear: He is a good father.

  “Yes, he is,” she whispered.

  “What’s that?” asked Hans, turning to her.

  Her husband looked better by lamplight than daylight, even though his face was creased with sleep. The haggard pieces of his face smoothed out, and his pale blue eyes somehow took on a winsome shape. Olive leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Nothing,” she said. “Just that you’re a wonderful father.”

  “I am a lucky one. And God willing, we have many more, meine Frau. You give me a fine son next, eh? To take the bakery when we are old.”

  Olive’s cheeks warmed. She reached for Lucy and drew the baby back into her arms. “Well, I’ll do my best, I suppose. Come now, little angel. Time for sleep.”

  By the time Lucy was settled in
the wooden cradle next to the bed, Hans was back asleep, snoring softly, and the only one left awake was Olive. And she was awake now; she was wide-awake, alert to an almost painful sharpness, as restless as a field mouse. She sank into the chair before her dressing table and stared at her harried reflection in the plain wooden mirror, framed by the unadorned white plaster wall behind her. She hadn’t had time to think about decorating. Their furniture was brown and simple and secondhand, the draperies hastily sewn and made over from her mother’s old things. What a difference from her sumptuous surroundings a year ago, when she had lain with her lover beneath a beautiful wrought-iron skylight, and the rooms beneath her had been full of priceless furniture and exquisite art. When she had been immersed in rich and sinful love.

  Where are you now, Harry?

  Are you in some other woman’s bed? Keeping warm, as I am?

  She closed her eyes and pictured this: pictured Harry in bed with another girl, naked and entwined, his body moving, lavishing the same pleasure on this nameless rival that he had once lavished on Olive. The frenetic climax, the tranquil aftermath. And somehow it didn’t hurt, this imagined scene, the way it once had. She was almost glad to think that Harry might have found some measure of fleeting joy; that he might, in fact, be finding joy at this exact instant. Harry was made for love; he was made for human happiness.

  Olive glanced at the cradle, where Lucy lay fast asleep, her head turned to one side and her mouth slack. Already she was getting so big; she had looked lost in that same cradle a month ago, and now she filled it. Before long she would move into the small room next to theirs, the one Olive was readying as a nursery. One of Hans’s sisters had given them a bassinet the other day, and Hans had spent last Sunday afternoon carefully sanding and repainting an ancient chest of drawers he had found at a shop nearby. In the wake of the financial panic last spring, people were losing their jobs and moving on. You could get a good bargain, if you knew where to look.