I looked back toward Eliza, who had reached the clerk’s desk and was listening meekly as the arresting officer gave his statement. She turned her head at the same moment, and our eyes met. I felt a brief flash of anger toward her for putting us in this position, mixed with guilt over my own incompetence. Her own soft eyes held no accusation, however. Again, I discerned only helpless fear and confusion. Sympathy rose up in me, uninvited. Of its own accord, my hand lifted in a small wave of encouragement.
Her mother turned and blinked at me, as if really seeing me for the first time. “You know my daughter?”
“Yes, I met her just yesterday, at the church.” I held out my hand. “I’m Genevieve Summerford.”
She frowned at me for a moment as though trying to place my name. Suddenly, her eyes widened as her mouth fell open in recognition. “You!” she gasped, drawing back from me. “You’re the one!”
I lowered my hand. “I beg your pardon?”
Her gnarled finger pointed at me from the top of her walking stick. “You’re the woman doctor she told me about who put all those crazy ideas in her head!”
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Mrs. Braun, I’m not sure what Eliza told you, but all I did was—”
“I know exactly what you did!” she interrupted. “You got her all excited and talking foolishness! You should have known better; you’re a doctor! Couldn’t you see she isn’t right in the head?”
The courtroom seemed to have suddenly tilted and slid off-center. “What do you mean, she isn’t right in the head?”
She pushed herself to her feet. “It’s all your fault,” she fumed, leaning over me with her eyes ablaze. “Everything that’s happened, it’s all your fault!” She backed into the aisle, her cane bumping against the bench legs, then staggered to an empty spot three rows back and sat down, her concave chest heaving with indignation. I swiveled back toward the front of the room. My heart was racing, and my eyes refused to focus. Eliza, the clerk, and the magistrate all merged into a blur until I could see nothing but accusing eyes glaring down at me. Not Mrs. Braun’s eyes—Papa’s eyes, cold and empty as the darkest reaches of space. I gripped the edge of the bench, helpless to resist, as I was swept back to that day long ago…
• • •
I lay on my stomach on the cool parquet floor, at eye level with the huge blue porcelain urns that had been magically transported from the distant Orient to house the giant palms in each corner of our drawing room. The fronds of one of these palms curved luxuriously over my head, creating a perfect hideaway. In the summer, when the rug was rolled up and the blinds were half-drawn to keep out the heat, this was my favorite place to draw.
My brother Conrad lay propped on his elbows beside me, watching the horse on my drawing tablet come slowly to life. His own drawing lay beside him—large messy strokes of blue broken by stepped, horizontal lines that I knew from experience were rooftops.
“Can I help?” he asked me.
“No. It’s a present, for Mama. It has to be just from me.”
Feet scurried around our heads as the maids rushed about, setting tall vases and crystal decanters and shining brass spittoons in place. From time to time, I glanced up at the commotion through the fingers of the palm frond. I’d never seen the chandelier glow so brightly or the piano reflect it with such a perfect shine. The entire household had been put to work preparing for Mama’s thirty-fifth birthday party. Even Eleanor, our new governess, had been pressed into service repairing a tear in one of the pillow covers. I could see her sitting in the tête-à-tête across the room, her small brown head bent over the velvet cover as her inexperienced fingers fumbled with the needle.
In the hallway, I heard Mama ask for the hundredth time, “Have the flowers arrived?” For weeks, we’d been hearing about the special flowers that she’d ordered for the event, the mere mention of which brought a sparkle to her eye. They were coming all the way from France, or Italy, or some other such inconceivable place, raced over land and water to arrive fresh and dewy at our door on this, her special day. Except that the deliverymen seemed to be cutting it awfully close, and as the time before the main event grew shorter and shorter, so did Mama’s temper.
Conrad leaned over to watch me draw the horse’s rear leg. “Golly!” he exclaimed, golly being his word of the week. “That’s a good horse.”
I bumped over so he could see the whole thing. “This is the hardest part,” I explained. He watched in respectful silence as I drew the knee, hock, and splaying hoof, so close to me I could smell the Pears soap that Eleanor used to wash his hair. I paused to examine the hoof and, deciding it was too small, drew a second line wider than the first. I pushed myself up on my hands to judge the result and heard Conrad’s soft grunt of approval.
“All right,” I relented. “You can fill in some of the sky. But only this part, right here.”
He scuttled on elbows and knees to the box of wax coloring sticks Mama had brought back from France and returned with a blunted blue. We set to work, and were just applying the finishing touches when a flurry of gasps and cries from the hallway informed us that the flowers had finally arrived. A moment later, Mama burst into the drawing room, trailed by Katie and two of the maids, each carrying an enormous arrangement. I pulled my drawing from beneath Conrad’s hand and flipped it over as she bustled past, her hair flying in untidy wisps around her shirtwaist collar.
She turned and scanned the room like a general surveying his battlefield. “Let’s see…that one right there, I think”—she directed the parlor maid, pointing to the round table—“and that one on the piano. No, wait: that one should go in front of the window. This one,” she said to Katie, who was straining under the weight of an enormous jardiniere, “should go on the piano.” She watched, fists on hips, as Katie slid the urn-shaped vase on top of the case. “Yes, perfect!”
I eyed this last arrangement with interest. It was nearly as tall as my brother, an elaborate construction of twining greens and extraordinarily long-stemmed roses that curved languidly over the edge of the vase. So these were the flowers that had put my mother in such a dither of anticipation. My blood quickened as an idea began to take shape in my mind.
“Where do you want these little ones, ma’am?” asked the chambermaid from the doorway, holding three vases in her arms.
Mama strode over to relieve her of one of the vases. “One on the hall console, I think, and two on the dining room sideboard. Here, I’ll show you. Eleanor, could you give us a hand?”
Eleanor put down her needle with relief and followed them out.
Conrad and I were alone in the drawing room. I got up and walked over to the piano for a closer inspection of the roses. They were as soft as velvet and perfectly shaped, as flawless as the special rosette trim in Mrs. Cunningham’s hat shop. I lifted one of the plump heads to my nose and breathed its intoxicating perfume as my idea burst into full form.
I released the rose and dashed out of the room. Returning a few moments later with a pair of scissors, I approached the piano and examined the roses with a critical, artist’s eye. The differences were slight, but some of the blossoms looked plumper to me and a tiny bit more symmetrical. I snipped one of these off with several inches of stem and set it aside. Working slowly to avoid the thorns, I continued to cut one after another of the best heads until there was a good-sized pile on the piano top. I carried these back to my drawing place and set to work.
I was lost in the requirements of color and composition when, some time later, my concentration was broken by my mother’s startled cry. “Genna! What have you done?”
I looked up to see her standing beside the piano, staring at a trail of petals that led from the bench to my little hideaway. I was vexed that I’d been found out before my masterwork was complete, but disappointment quickly gave way to delicious anticipation. I jumped to my feet, holding up my drawing with both hands. I had punched the rose stems throug
h the heavy paper and twisted them together underneath so that the precious flowers now formed a nearly full wreath around the horse’s neck. “Happy birthday, Mama!”
“Oh, Genna.” Her eyes were dark with disappointment.
I lowered the drawing uncertainly to my side. “It’s not finished yet. It will look better when it’s done…”
“What is it?” Father stood in the doorway, having chosen this moment to look in on the preparations. “What’s happened?” he asked, striding to my mother’s side.
“It’s all right,” my mother said quickly. “She was just trying to make me a present.”
Father’s gaze moved from Mother’s face to the rose garland. “No, it is not all right,” he fumed. “Not all right at all! Genevieve, how many times have we told you that you must think before you act?”
I stared down at my shoes.
“What on earth possessed you? You know how much your mother has been looking forward to receiving those roses! Why would you want to destroy them?”
I looked up in surprise. “I didn’t destroy them! They’re right here, see? On the horse’s neck.”
His cheeks bulged the way they had when Mrs. Wall asked me how I liked her fruit cake and I said it tasted moldy. “That was a thoughtless and foolhardy thing to do.”
I didn’t yet have a full grasp of the fatal flaw that would soon so radically change my life. But I was already well acquainted with words like “rash” and “thoughtless” and “foolhardy”—and, most familiar of all, “selfish.” I truly didn’t mean to be selfish. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I just didn’t stop to think, when I tried to tunnel through the lawn to China, that I would need a new dress to replace my hopelessly soiled one, or to consider, when I stopped to spin tops in the vacant corner lot after school, the distress my absence would cause my governess. Each time, I promised myself to do better, but no matter how often I promised, I always seemed to end up here, staring at my shoes.
Mother laid her hand on Father’s arm. “Genna,” she said, “why don’t you take Conrad out into the yard? I’ll have Eleanor call you when it’s time for your supper.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And please see that he doesn’t get dirty. Eleanor has enough to do without giving him another bath.”
“All right, Mama.”
She stooped in front of me, taking hold of the picture. “Why don’t I put this somewhere safe for now? Then later, we can dry the flowers and put them in our keepsake box.”
I handed it over without a word. I didn’t want to remember it now. It looked clumsy and stupid in her hands.
I took Conrad by the wrist and dragged him out into the hall, through the pantry to the little stone terrace behind our house. He immediately ran off across the patch of lawn beyond it, toward the trickling fountain in the back wall that separated our property from Aunt Margaret’s. Yesterday, the lawn had been bustling with men raking up chestnut burrs and cutting the grass, but today, all was quiet save for the splash and gurgle of the fountain.
At least I didn’t have to worry about Conrad disturbing Father’s project, I thought, starting after him. Two weeks before, Father had decided to make a string of electric lights to decorate the chestnut tree for the party. Since electric service hadn’t yet reached our neighborhood, and we didn’t have enough space in the cellar for a private dynamo, he’d set to work building an “earth battery,” which, he’d explained, would draw electricity right from the earth, costing nothing but the price of a few metal plates and magnets and the wire to connect them. Unfortunately, as he was constantly adjusting the depth and alignment of the plates in an effort to improve results, we children could never be quite sure where danger lay and had been scolded more than once for tripping over the wires. When, by the week of the party, he’d only captured enough current to light two small bulbs, he finally gave in and bought an Edison battery for the job, to our private but great relief.
Now the plates were gone, the holes were filled in, and the lawn was level again. I cut across the smooth grass toward the back wall, resisting the urge to take off my shoes so as not to soil my stockings. Instead of continuing toward the fountain, however, Conrad suddenly veered to the right, making a beeline toward a wheelbarrow that was standing under the chestnut tree.
“Conrad, wait!” I cried after him, mindful of my mother’s instruction to keep him clean. “Let’s see if there are any more raspberries in the hedge!”
He paused in midstride, glancing at me over his shoulder, then changed his course toward the patch of raspberry canes that arced over the far side of the lawn. Belatedly, it occurred to me that raspberries posed even more of a threat to his shirtfront than did the dirty wheelbarrow. I hurried after him as resentful thoughts rustled through my head. Why did I always have to look after Conrad? Why should I get in trouble just because he did something wrong? I caught up to him just as he was reaching for a shriveled berry on one of the lower canes.
“I’ll get it,” I said, pushing his hand away. I plucked off the few remaining fruits that hadn’t gone all pruney or been pecked hollow by the birds, and we sat on the grass to divvy them up. I had just popped the last seedy berry into his mouth when a shrill chirp erupted from the grass at our feet, making both of us jump.
“It’s a cricket!” Conrad said, dropping onto his hands and knees to grab at the leaping black blur. He came up empty and grabbed again. “Got him!”
“Careful you don’t squish it,” I said, crouching beside him.
He made a peephole in his fist and squinted through it. A shiny black antenna poked out of the hole. “Let me see,” I ordered, leaning closer.
He cracked open his fingers to give me a better view. Unfortunately, he miscalculated, and the cricket jumped out to safety. The creature’s leap, however, was now lopsided, his arc of flight too low to clear the grass.
“He’s hurt,” I said, crawling after it as it lurched unevenly through the dense blades.
The cricket paused a moment beneath a half-shorn dandelion head, and we bent for a closer look. One of its rear legs was indeed sticking out from the top joint in a most unnatural way.
“Leg’s broke,” Conrad announced matter-of-factly.
“Maybe it’s just bent a little,” I said, feeling a spasm of remorse.
He pursed his lips, studying the leg. “It’s aw’ right. I can fix it.”
Even at this young age, Conrad was always trying to fix things. He took after Father that way. I, on the other hand, was consumed by unanswerable questions: What was the cricket feeling? Was it aware that its life had just taken a terrible turn for the worse, or oblivious to its plight?
I grabbed Conrad’s arm as he reached for it. “Don’t. You’ll only make it worse.”
He blinked at me. “No I won’t. I’m going to put a stick on it, like when Uncle Travy broke his leg.”
“A splint, you mean.” I peered at the whisker-thin leg. “I suppose a matchstick might do it. Or a sliver of toothpick.”
“I’ll go ask Katie,” he said, getting to his feet.
“No,” I said, pushing him back down. “I’ll go.” If we were going to nurse the cricket back to health, we’d need something to keep it in, and I had just the thing in mind: an orchid box that had arrived that very morning with tiny air holes already cut through. I could make a lovely little house out of it, with a bed of shredded cotton and an empty balm tin for water. “I’ll be right back,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Keep your eye on him, but don’t pick him up.”
At the door, I glanced back, remembering that I was never supposed to leave Conrad outdoors by himself. He was sitting with his chin propped on one knee, watching the cricket as his fingers absently flicked a blade of grass. In my mind, there were two kinds of rules: big rules, like never telling a lie or taking candy from the jar without paying, and numerous, peskier little rules that could, when circumstances requ
ired, be safely ignored. Not leaving Conrad alone in the rear yard felt like a little rule to me. Besides, I would only be gone for a minute.
I dashed through the empty pantry, down the hall, and up the two flights of stairs to Mama’s boudoir. The orchid box was still on the dressing table where I’d last seen it. A balm tin took a little longer, but I finally found a half-empty one in the back of the medicine closet. I wiped it clean and dropped it into the orchid box, tossing in a toothpick, some silk floss, and a tube of liniment for good measure.
Altogether, I couldn’t have been gone more than six or seven minutes. When I ran back outside, however, Conrad was no longer sitting in the grass, or anywhere in sight. He must be hiding in the wheelbarrow, I thought in exasperation, stalking toward the chestnut tree. Within a few strides, however, I could see that the wheelbarrow was empty. I was wondering whether he might have climbed the turnstile into Aunt Margaret’s yard when a movement in the tree’s branches caught my attention.
I looked up, shading my eyes. He couldn’t have climbed up there, I reasoned; he was too small to reach the bottom branch. But then my gaze dropped down the gnarled trunk, and despite the sun on my face, I felt a sudden chill.
A weathered wooden ladder was propped against the side of the tree, barely visible against the trunk’s mottled bark. Moving closer, I saw the coil of electric lights that hung from a nail near its top rung. The workmen must have been planning to use the ladder when they returned, to string the lights on the tree.
Covering the remaining distance at a trot, I grabbed the sides of the ladder and peered up into the leafy canopy. “Conrad?”
Leaves rustled high above me, and a small voice answered, “I’m up here.”
Directly above my head, so high that it made me dizzy to look, I made out the bottom of a boot and a pale leg encircled by dark short pants. Tilting my head farther back and to the side, I made out the rest of my brother’s diminutive form. He was standing on a branch some two feet out from the trunk, holding the limb above him with both hands.
A Deadly Affection Page 8