by Karen White
She made it down to her own room, her back against the flimsy panes of the door before she broke down entirely, sobbing with great, gulping, silent sobs, her entire body wracked with pain. John must have left, she supposed; she didn’t know, she didn’t want to know. It was easier to hate him, to blame him, when she was away from him. One look, one soft word, and she would be in his arms—and then what?
Maybe what John said was true—maybe there was no love lost between him and his Annabelle— but there was his son, Cooper. How could she do that to the boy? John might think it would all work out in the end, but Lucy knew better. And John—in the fatigue of despair, she knew the truth of it—John would come to hate her in the end, his love weakened by the constant stresses of their situation, being pulled between his lover and his son.
No. Unsteadily, Lucy pushed herself to her feet. Her skirt was crumpled; her hair disarranged. Mechanically, she dragged herself to the rickety chest that passed as a dressing table.
Day had turned to dusk without her being aware; she had to squint to see herself as she pulled a comb through her hair, shoving the ruby pendant away, deep down in the bottom of a drawer. A fresh blouse, a clean skirt. Lucy moved as stiffly as a carousel horse, bobbing up and down on its appointed track.
She knew where she needed to go, what she needed to do.
Her legs felt detached, rubbery, as they covered the few blocks from Stornaway House to the apartment building on Park Avenue. She waited as the doorman buzzed upstairs; time didn’t seem to matter. She was wrapped in the cool calm of despair, impervious to the speculative glance of the elevator man as the wood-paneled box lifted her up to a private landing, a marble floor, a large Chinese vase serving as an umbrella stand.
Lucy barely noticed any of this. Her eyes were on the man standing in the doorway. He had shaved since the morning, although his eyes still bore the signs of sleeplessness. After John, he seemed somehow insubstantial, his fair hair too light, his eyes too pale, his body too thin.
But the smile that lit his eyes on seeing her was completely genuine. “Lucy! Dare I hope—that is, would you like to come in?”
Lucy felt a little of the hard knot in her chest begin to dissolve. Just a little.
“Philip,” she said, and was surprised at how steady her voice sounded. “Philip, I will marry you.”
“Well, then,” said Philip Schuyler, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he beamed at her. “You’d better come in, then, hadn’t you?”
“Aren’t you fancy?” Dottie leaned against the open doorway of the washroom, a pair of damp stockings draped over her arm.
“Thank you.” Calmly, Lucy unpinned the veil that sat so smoothly over her dark hair. Valenciennes lace, masses of it. With only one day left before the wedding, it seemed sensible to practice pinning the veil, the mirror in the washroom much larger than the sliver of mirror in Lucy’s attic room. “It belonged to my fiancé’s stepmother.”
Prunella Pratt Schuyler, with much sniffing and disapproval, had eventually lent her countenance—and veil—to the mésalliance between her stepson and his secretary. Not, Lucy was sure, out of any goodness of her heart, but because she had several large bills that needed settling. After a moment of hesitation, Philip had admitted that Prunella’s goodwill had been bought with a large check.
“You don’t mind wearing her veil, do you?” he’d asked. “She’s a viper, but it’s good lace.”
That, Lucy reminded herself firmly, was part of what she respected about Philip. For all his veneer of flippant charm, when it came down to it, he was as honest as they came. He didn’t lie to her.
“I s’pose I’ll read about the wedding in the society pages, then?” said Dottie stridently.
Lucy folded the yards of lace neatly over her arm. “I suppose you will,” she said equably, and stood, politely expectant, until the other woman reluctantly moved out of her way.
There were, Lucy thought wryly, benefits to being a Schuyler, or almost a Schuyler. Dottie might sneer, but she already treated Lucy differently; they all did.
Lucy’s attic room felt empty, her belongings already in boxes, only her wedding dress left to hang in state behind the curtain on the wall, her nightdress lying across the foot of the bed. One more night in Stornaway House, and then she would be gone forever. There would be no more Lucy Young, only Mrs. Philip Schuyler.
Lucy shut the door of her room firmly behind her, shutting out the inquisitive stares of the other residents. She was their Cinderella story, and they were half-envious, half-excited. If Lucy could catch a Schuyler, then surely there was hope for them?
Lucy’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. Did Cinderella wake up the next morning to find that the slipper pinched? She was trying hard to fit into Philip’s world, to be a credit to him, but it wasn’t always easy. She knew people talked and whispered, that everyone knew that she had been his secretary, that she had stolen him away from Didi, my dear, yes, right under her nose, just like that! They spied and whispered, and Lucy had to work twice as hard to maintain her serene smile, to pretend that she didn’t care.
Panic gripped her. Could she really go through with this? If she loved Philip—
That was the rub, wasn’t it? She did love him, just not in the right way. She loved Philip enough to know she didn’t love him enough.
But she was too selfish and cowardly to let him go. Without him—
There was a knock on the door. Dottie again, her small eyes avidly scanning the room, feasting on the pile of boxes, hatboxes, dress boxes, the rich tissue paper and glossy boxes so incongruous in the attic room with its peeling paint and grimy windows. Lucy’s new wardrobe, for her new life as Mrs. Philip Schuyler.
“This came for you.” Dottie thrust the envelope into Lucy’s hands. Her eyes rested on a pile of boxes. “Are those from—”
“Thank you.” Lucy shut the door in her face, not caring how rude it must seem.
Lucy bolted the door behind her, the paper burning like a brand in her hands. The blurred postmark read CHARLESTON, S.C. The envelope tore as she opened it, her hands too quick, too eager. The letter was thick, pages of it, written in a large, loose hand. A sprawling, easygoing writing, just like his walk, his voice, his movements.
Dearest Lucy, the letter began. Lucy could practically feel John there, in the room with her, standing behind her, his voice warm in her ear.
I know I have no right to write you, but when I saw the announcement of your engagement I knew that I couldn’t remain silent any longer . . .
She ought to tear it up, but she hadn’t the strength for it; she gulped down the words, greedy for them, dizzy with them.
. . . not too late. We can still be together. . . . Love like this doesn’t come along more than once in a lifetime.
I love you, Lucy. Always.
Do you want to make the same mistake our parents made and live the rest of your life living a lie, knowing that love was there, in our grasp, and we threw it away?
Nights at the opera with Philip, smiling, pretending. Endless dinner parties. Always a little on her guard, even with her own fiancé. Trying, so hard, to pretend to be in love.
Nights with John, curled up together, easy together, never having to try, speaking with touch as well as words, that effortless sense of homecoming, of never having to pretend, of being just what she was, because what she was would always be enough for him.
Philip—Philip would recover, thought Lucy wildly, clinging to the sheets of John’s letter, Prunella’s veil crumpled, forgotten, on the floor. There would be other women. He was so urbane, so charming. He thought he wanted Lucy; he called her his talisman, his touchstone, but it was nonsense, really. He could find someone from his own world, someone who would adore him as he deserved to be adored.
Train tickets . . . How far to Charleston? When she got there, a hotel, she supposed. John hadn’t said anything about where she
would stay.
He hadn’t said anything about anything.
Lucy fell back to earth with a thump. Slowly, she sat down on the bed and scanned the letter again, looking for the practicalities, the bread and butter of where and how they were to live. There was nothing about a divorce. Nothing about Annabelle. Words of love, beautiful, yes, but utterly insubstantial, like dining on meringues and champagne and rising from the table with a headache and an aching stomach from eating sugar and air.
Come to me, be with me, live with me, love me. Yes, yes, all that, but how?
Lucy pressed her palms to her aching eyes, loving John and hating him all at the same time. Didn’t he know that the knight was supposed to ride up and sweep the princess away, not leave her to make her own way out of the castle? The dragons were still there, unslain. Annabelle, Cooper, John’s mother, his sister—who was Annabelle’s friend.
And then there was Philip. He’d defied his own people for her—whether she had wanted him to or not, thought Lucy shrewishly, and then chided herself for it. She’d run to Philip, had used him as a shield. She was as guilty as he. And, having used him as a shield, she could hardly abandon him now, leave him at the altar to be whispered at by all those carping society matrons, those twittering friends of Didi who would be only too delighted to see him get his comeuppance for daring to choose a secretary over one of their own.
Slowly, Lucy shuffled the pages of the letter back together. Just the touch of the paper felt like a forbidden indulgence, this paper that had touched John’s hands and now touched her own, a thin thread tying her to him.
For a moment, Lucy’s hands tightened on the pages. She wanted him still, loved him still.
But the cost was too high.
Do you want to make the same mistake our parents made . . . ?
Lucy waited until the sounds of activity had faded from the hallway, everyone tucked away for the night. In the darkness, she felt her way down the hall to the abandoned staircase. It felt different at night, narrower, steeper. The stairs seemed to stretch on forever, the door, without John’s strong hand, stuck before releasing with an audible creak.
Moonlight poured through the skylight, turning the studio ebony and silver. There. There John had kissed her. There. There John had told her about his wife.
He must have tidied after she left. The sketches were gone from the floor, the Chinese cabinet closed, the bricks in their place above the mantel.
She half expected the mechanism to fail, but it didn’t. When she pushed on the knight’s shield, the bricks of the wall swung out as easily and soundlessly as though they had been waiting for her. Inside, she could see the sad remains of her mother’s affair with Harry Pratt: the detective’s report, his letter.
Before she could think better of it, Lucy thrust John’s letter on top of the pile.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she murmured to the empty room. “Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, does it?”
Moonlight glinted off the knight’s shield, just as it had, in those long-ago evenings, off the mural in her room.
There are consolations. From very far away, Lucy heard her mother’s voice, felt her arm around her, sitting with her, late at night, in a small bed a borough away. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect, but there are consolations.
For a moment, Lucy thought she smelled lavender, heard the crinkle of her mother’s long, starched skirts, but then it was gone, and the room, once again, was still, its secrets hidden beneath a silver wash of moonlight.
“Good-bye,” Lucy said to no one in particular, and, closing the door, went downstairs to face the dawn.
Thirty-one
SEPTEMBER 1944
Kate
“Kate?”
I looked up when I realized that my name had been called more than twice. I blinked, trying to remember where I was and why, and with whom. Not that any of it mattered. Not that anything seemed to matter anymore.
“Kate, would you like another cigarette?”
I blinked again, trying to remember Dr. Greeley’s first name, but couldn’t. He’d probably be flattered if I called him Doctor even outside the hospital, so I didn’t try very hard to recall it. I tapped my fingers on the top of his desk, then took a final drag on my cigarette before stabbing it out in a glass ashtray. “No. Thank you. I should be getting back to my patients.”
His hand slid up my arm and I didn’t move away. Not that I had any intention of following through with any of his innuendoes, but I simply didn’t have the energy to push his hand off me any more than I had the energy to eat or return Margie’s calls.
Dr. Greeley leaned toward me with what could only be described as a leer. “It must be nice to have your room all to yourself again.”
I thought of the barren room at the top of the stairs, stripped again of its two extra beds and all of the extraneous furniture that had once given it a cozy atmosphere, and suppressed a shudder. Looking straight into his eyes, I said, “I sleep with a surgical knife and I know how to use it.”
His hand left my arm, allowing me to step away. His lips pressed together. “I’m a patient man, Kate, but even my patience has its limits.”
I opened the office door as I tried to think of something to say, and found myself staring into Nurse Hathaway’s raised hand, her knuckles prepared to knock. She smiled brightly. “I was hoping to find you in here. Nobody seemed to know where you’d gone.”
I smiled back at her, using my eyes to thank her for rescuing me again. Ever since Cooper had left, she’d been keeping a protective watch over me, which was a good thing since I seemed to be a lost wanderer in the dark, running into walls, unsure of which direction to move. The only thing I could rely on was my medical training, my confidence as a doctor, and my ability to heal and nurture patients. It consoled me, almost reassured me that I’d made the right decision in allowing Cooper out of my life. Almost.
“Nurse Hathaway,” I said. “I was just leaving.”
“Perfect timing, then. You have a visitor.”
I felt something stir in my chest, and she must have seen something in my eyes, because her smile dimmed. “It’s Mrs. Prunella Schuyler. She says she’s a relative.”
I looked at her in surprise. “She’s here? At the hospital?”
“Yes. I brought her to the patient consulting office to give you some privacy if you wanted to chat. Should I bring up some tea?”
“That would be lovely . . .”
“She doesn’t have time,” Dr. Greeley said, looking at his watch. “She has rounds in twenty minutes.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I said, turning my back on him as I exited his office and walked down the hall to the same stained glass door of the office in which I’d sat when Margie had come to visit and tell me what she’d learned at the library about the Pratt family.
“She brought her maid,” Nurse Hathaway whispered. “So you won’t be alone with her.”
I nodded my thanks, then pushed open the office door after a brief knock.
Mona had left off her white apron and mobcap, but she was wearing the same black dress of shiny and worn material. She smiled and stood as I entered.
“I told the missus that it would be the polite thing to do to give ye some advance warning, but she’d have none of it.”
Prunella scowled at the maid as she plucked off her gloves, finger by finger. “That is enough, Mona. You are excused for the next fifteen minutes.”
I held the door open to let the maid pass. “Go downstairs to the lobby. The nurse can show you where the coffee is, and there are some chairs down there, too.”
Prunella was dressed all in black, a crow against the crimson red upholstery of the small couch. A fox stole stared at me from its perch around her shoulders. She pressed a starched white linen handkerchief against her nose. “It is an abomination to see all these people in my father’s
mansion. He must be rolling over in his grave.” She said the word people with the same inflection I imagined she’d use for the word rubbish.
“This is a pleasant surprise, Aunt Prunella. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
She sniffed. “I grew tired of waiting for you to visit me. I might be dead before you made time for me, so I am here instead. And I have something I need to tell you.”
“And I, you,” I said. “But first would you like a tour around the house to show you how it’s all changed since you lived here?”
“Good heavens, no. It is quite enough to simply smell the changes from this room.”
Without waiting for her to grant me permission, I sat down on a chair opposite. “Aunt Prunella, were you aware of a hidden compartment behind a brick in the attic fireplace?”
Her eyes widened, but she shook her head. “No. Harry used the attic as his studio and never allowed me up there, and certainly never showed me any secret compartment. Of course, I did manage to sneak up there from time to time to see what he was up to and saw all of his canvases stacked along the wall. I inherited them, you know. Only because they weren’t considered worth anything to auction.” She said this last softly, as if musing to herself. Glancing back at me, she said, “Why do you ask?”
“I found some letters hidden there, presumably by Harry. And a letter to my mother, Lucy. Olive’s daughter.” I looked at her closely, but she never flinched—either from good breeding or because she already knew. And an engagement ring, I almost added but didn’t. The pain and loss were still too fresh and real to me. I’d tell her one day. Just not today.
“Was there anything in there to tell us what happened to Harry?” she asked, leaning slightly forward.
“Not exactly, but a patient here, Captain Cooper Ravenel, and I stumbled upon some information quite by accident. We discovered that after Olive married my grandfather, Harry changed his name to Augustus Ravenel.”
