by Adele Whitby
“Do we have another trip scheduled to Providence?” Mom said abruptly.
“I guess we’ll go back in two days for my birthday movie,” I replied. “Why?”
Mom stared out the window. “We’ll make an extra stop at Gladding’s so I can return that dress. I don’t need it. It’s an unnecessary extravagance. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Kate,” Aunt Beth said. “I want you to have it.”
But Mom just shook her head. “No, Beth, no. It would be bad enough for me to waste my family’s money. It’s shameful for me to waste yours.”
Mom continued staring out the window, but I could see the tight, pinched look on her face in the reflection. It was all my fault—I’d pushed and pushed her to buy the dress, and now the thought of owning it filled her with regret. But it wasn’t fair for Mom to go without any nice things.
None of it was fair.
“It’s not a waste!” I cried. “You looked beautiful in it, and it made you so happy!”
Mom finally turned to look at me. “You know, Kay, I don’t think it was the dress that made me happy. It was the fun I was having with you and Betsy and Aunt Beth. The shopping and the fancy luncheon—those things were delightful, of course—but what really made it special was being with some of my favorite people in the world.”
“And there’s no reason for our jolly times to end just because we’ve left Providence,” Aunt Beth said smoothly. “I have an idea. What if we spend the rest of the day inside Vandermeer Manor? I’d very much like to see the grand rooms again, and perhaps we might begin preparing the house for tours. What do you say, Kate?”
The worry on Mom’s face seemed to melt away. “That would be wonderful, Beth,” she said. “There’s so much to do. And it always makes me feel better to see progress made.”
“That’s why Betsy and I are here,” Aunt Beth said as she patted Mom’s hand. “Whatever we can do, we’re at your service!”
“Would you like me to drop you off at the main house, then?” Dad asked.
“Yes,” Mom said firmly. “We’ll get started right away!”
Mom unlocked Vandermeer Manor’s great oak doors with her brass key. Then the four of us stepped inside the front hall.
“Since no one’s living here at the moment, we keep the drapes drawn so that the furniture and carpets won’t fade,” Mom said. “But Shannon, Kay, and I come in every week to dust.”
Aunt Beth sucked in her breath sharply. “It’s as beautiful as I remembered,” she whispered. “One of the grandest homes I’ve ever seen.”
I understood why Aunt Beth was whispering; such a solemn, quiet air had settled over Vandermeer Manor that it seemed important not to disturb it. Back when we had lived in the house, it had been full of activity: servants bustling from room to room, deliveries of groceries and supplies, and an endless stream of visitors. Now, in the silence, I couldn’t tell if the house was lonely . . . or simply resting. I wondered if Vandermeer Manor missed us as much as we missed living here.
It’s just a house, Kay, I scolded myself. It can’t miss us.
But was it just a house? As Mom drew back the heavy velvet drapes at each window, sunlight poured into the rooms, sparkling off the crystal chandeliers and gleaming on the polished marble floors. My ancestors had designed Vandermeer Manor, and each room still boasted Great-Great-Grandmother Katherine’s touches—from the faceted doorknobs to the portraits that hung on the walls. How could Vandermeer Manor ever be just a house, when our lives had unfolded here for generations? That mattered, didn’t it? That had to count for something.
But now it’s time for a new chapter, I reminded myself. A new adventure is about to begin. For us, and for Vandermeer Manor, too.
An easy calm had settled over Mom now that she was back in Vandermeer Manor. Mom lived here more than twice as long as me, I realized. She must miss it even more than I do.
“Would you like a tour, sweetheart?” Mom asked Betsy.
“Would I ever!” Betsy exclaimed. “I can’t believe I’m standing inside Vandermeer Manor. It’s more beautiful than I imagined.”
“I apologize that some of the rooms are a little bare,” Mom explained. “Like the library—you’ll see that several shelves are empty. We sold some of the rare books a few months ago.”
Aunt Beth nodded understandingly. “Rare books can fetch a tidy sum,” she said. “Though I’m sure it broke your heart to part with them.”
Mom paused. “Well . . . yes and no,” she said. “I would’ve grieved if they’d been lost in a fire. But I can’t be too sad, knowing that they’re safe and sound in the possession of someone who will appreciate and enjoy them as much as we did.”
“That’s a wise way to look at it,” said Aunt Beth.
“All my life, I’ve placed a great importance on the things around us,” Mom continued. “As if it were the things themselves that contained my happy memories or favorite moments. If there’s one bit of good that’s come out of this ordeal, it’s that I’ve seen the error of my ways.” She held her arms out. “It was never the things that mattered, really. It was the people who used them. Letting go of the things doesn’t mean that we’re letting go of the people we loved.”
“Have you emptied Katherine’s rooms?” Aunt Beth asked.
“No, I’m not quite ready for that,” Mom replied with a laugh. “When I visit Katherine’s rooms and see everything just so—just the way she left it—it’s like I can still feel her presence. I miss her so much.”
Then Mom turned to Betsy and me. “But I was thinking that you two might be able to sort through Essie Bridges’s old rooms in the East Wing,” she said.
For years, the East Wing had hidden one of the biggest secrets of Vandermeer Manor: Essie Bridges, who had been Katherine and Elizabeth’s lady’s maid when the twins were girls. Essie had accompanied Great-Great-Grandmother Katherine to America to be her lady’s maid after she married. But when Essie developed a devastating sensitivity to the sun that made it impossible for her to go outside without breaking out in a painful rash, Katherine had moved her into the East Wing and cared for her until Essie had passed away, several years before I was born.
“Sure,” I told Mom.
“What exactly do you want us to do?” asked Betsy. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. From her tone of voice, I couldn’t tell if she was unhappy about the work ahead of us—but she didn’t look upset.
“Let’s talk about it on the way,” Mom said as she led us toward the main staircase. “Our first step will be sorting through everything to organize it—so you’ll dedicate one area for papers, another for clothing, a third for books, and so on. After everything has been sorted, you can help Aunt Beth and me decide what should be done with it.”
“Oh, Kate, look,” Aunt Beth suddenly said. “The alcove! After all these years—it hasn’t changed a bit!”
“No, it hasn’t,” Mom said with a smile.
“Is this the alcove?” Betsy asked. “Where you put your necklaces together and said Elizabeth and Katherine’s special chant?”
“The very same,” Aunt Beth said. “It was the day before Kate’s birthday—”
“I’d just received the Katherine necklace at tea,” Mom remembered. “The Great War was looming, and Beth’s parents had insisted she return home right away.”
“How wise they were,” Aunt Beth said, “though of course we didn’t know it at the time. We were so young back then, remember, Kate? We had a whole scheme planned for me to hide in the East Wing! But there was great danger for ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean during those dark days, even for passenger vessels.”
“It was a terrible time,” Mom said, shaking her head.
“We stood right here,” Aunt Beth continued as she walked over to the tiny alcove off the East Wing, “and we said the chant we’d read about in Essie Bridges’s journal. ‘I am Beth, and I love my cousin Kate.’ ”
“ ‘I am Kate, and I love my cousin Beth,’ ” Mom said.
>
“Forever!” they said at the same time.
“Then we put the Elizabeth and Katherine necklaces together to make a whole heart—” Aunt Beth said.
“It was the first time they’d been together in nearly sixty years,” Mom interrupted her.
“And they made a funny little noise, and then—pop!—a tiny door in the back of each pendant snapped open!” Aunt Beth finished. “All these little slips of paper tumbled to the floor.”
“When I unscrambled them, I thought they spelled out ‘apart forever,’ ” Mom said. “It was heartbreaking! But Great-Grandmother Katherine told me that some of the letters were still stuck in our necklaces, and that the message really said ‘a part of you forever.’ ”
Mom paused to unlock the entrance to the East Wing. “We’ll be in the study if you need us.”
Entering the East Wing was like stepping through a time machine; nothing in it had been disturbed since before Betsy and I had even been born. The three rooms—a sitting room, a bedroom, and a powder room—were filled with a lifetime’s worth of knickknacks and mementos.
“Goodness,” Betsy finally said. “I hardly know where to begin.”
“It’s best to start in one little corner,” I told her, glad to share what I’d learned from sorting through other rooms. “We could tackle the writing desk first, I guess.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Betsy agreed. “It’s probably full of papers and curios.”
Betsy was right. Each drawer contained stacks of letters that were tied with satin ribbons. I slipped a yellowed letter from one stack and began to read it. “ ‘29 November, 1827. Dear Clarice, I am writing to you in great haste with news that you will find surprising—perhaps even shocking.’ ”
I stopped reading abruptly. “It’s not right to read this,” I said. “It’s someone else’s correspondence. I feel like a snoop.”
“But it was written in 1827,” Betsy pointed out. “That’s more than a hundred years ago! Clarice and the letter writer are dead and buried by now, whoever they were.”
“Still,” I insisted as I slipped the letter back into its packet. “We’ll just make a stack for all the papers and let our mothers decide what to do with them.”
“As you wish,” Betsy agreed. “Oh, look, Kay, how lovely! It’s got to be Katherine and Elizabeth!”
I peeked over her shoulder at the daguerreotype in her hands. “You look like them,” I said.
Betsy started to laugh. “That’s funny—I was just thinking the same about you!”
“Ooh, what’s that?” I asked as I reached past Betsy to a shiny object. It was circular, with sections of metal twisted and turned around each other to form an endless loop. A small arrow protruded from one end. The beautiful object dangled from red and blue ribbons that had been woven together.
“That’s called a Celtic knot,” Betsy said knowledgeably. “It’s a symbol of Ireland. Funny, though—it almost looks like a key.”
“Or a necklace,” I said, holding it up by the ribbons. “It would be a pretty thing to wear. I’ll start a curio pile.”
“Why don’t we put the curios on that empty bookshelf?” Betsy suggested. “That might help keep things orderly in here.”
“Great idea,” I replied. “Actually, Betsy, why don’t we move all the books down to the library? We’ll be able to fill the empty shelves down there while making room up here for organizing.”
“Perfect!”
Betsy and I each scooped up an armful of books and set off for the library. “I suppose we should make sure that Mom approves of this idea,” I said. “Let’s stop by the study first.”
We found Mom and Aunt Beth sorting through an enormous stack of old invoices. “I’m not sure now why we ever held on to all of these,” Mom was saying. “What possible use could I have for a grocery bill from 1917?”
“Hello, darlings,” Aunt Beth said as we walked into the room. “What have you brought us?”
I told Mom and Aunt Beth about our plan. “Is that all right?”
“It’s fine with me,” Mom replied.
Aunt Beth rose from her chair and crossed the room. “I adore old books,” she said as she took one from the stack in my arms. “The softness of the pages . . . the cracked leather binding . . . even the smell! I love wondering about who might have read them before, or finding a forgotten bookmark. An old book is like a mystery and a puzzle all rolled into one.”
She gently opened the book. “ ‘Bleak House. A novel by Charles Dickens,’ ” she read from the title page. “Oh, that’s one of my favorites! And look here—see the date? 1853. This must be a first edition.”
“I have some Dickens books as well,” Betsy said. “The Adventures of Oliver Twist. A Christmas Carol . . .”
“David Copperfield. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,” I added, reading the titles of the other books in my arms.
“There’s a mark in this one,” Mom said as she, too, began flipping through one of the books.
We crowded around Mom to examine the pair of swirly letters that had been written inside the front cover.
“This one, too,” I said.
“And mine as well,” Aunt Beth spoke up. “And this one . . . and this one . . . and this one . . . ,” she said as she checked each book. “What does that look like to you?”
“The first letter is certainly a C,” Mom said. “I’m not sure about the second. We don’t have anyone in the Vandermeer line whose first name begins with a C, though.”
“I had a grandmother Charlotte and a great-grandmother Cecily,” Aunt Beth said. “But I can’t imagine how their books would’ve ended up in Essie Bridges’s possession in Vandermeer Manor.”
Betsy squinted at the letters scrawled in her book. Suddenly, her face grew pale, and the book fell to the floor with a loud thud. We all jumped from the sound.
“Betsy!” Aunt Beth said anxiously. “What’s wrong?”
Betsy’s hands were shaking as she picked up the book. “It’s a D!” she exclaimed, her words tumbling out in a rush. “C.D. Charles Dickens!”
The silence surrounding us was electric. The expression on Mom’s face kept shifting, from disbelief to shock to astonishment to . . . Was that hope?
“Were there other books like these?” Aunt Beth asked in a low, urgent voice.
I nodded, feeling tongue-tied.
“Run and fetch them please, girls,” she told us.
Betsy and I ran as fast as we could to the East Wing.
“Do you think—?” she said, all out of breath as we piled the rest of the Dickens books into our arms.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
Then we were off again, racing through the hallways so fast that we couldn’t spare a second to talk about the amazing discovery.
While we were gone, Mom and Aunt Beth opened every other Dickens volume to reveal the same initials in each book.
C.D.
C.D.
C.D. C.D. C.D.
Mom bit her lip anxiously, still too cautious to give in to her hope. “I just don’t know enough about rare books to be sure,” she said.
“Kate,” Aunt Beth replied, her eyes shining with happiness, “it’s entirely possible that there were first editions of Charles Dickens books, initialed by the author, in the Chatswood library. We know that Katherine brought many things from home with her when she emigrated . . . and if these books were among them . . .”
“And if she loaned them to Essie . . . ,” Mom began, then covered her mouth with her hand. She looked like she was about to cry.
“I can’t begin to imagine what they would be worth,” Aunt Beth replied. “First editions of some of the most famous novels ever to have been written, initialed by the author. Priceless, really, to the right collector.”
“It’s like Great-Grandmother Katherine is still providing for her family!” Mom exclaimed. “I’ve got to call Vivian—she’s been handling all the sales of Vandermeer antiques. Beth, do you realize wh
at this might mean? If the books really are that valuable . . . we’ll be able to pay off the debt!”
“Go!” Aunt Beth laughed as she gave Mom a gentle push toward the door. “Telephone Vivian at once! Don’t delay a moment!”
Mom laughed, too, as she kissed each of us in turn. Then she hurried out of the study to use the phone back at our cottage.
I was so happy that I felt like dancing. “Oh, Aunt Beth, how much do you think they’ll sell for?” I said. “Could it be enough that we’ll be able to buy back all the shares of Vandermeer Steel, too?”
Aunt Beth put her arm around me. “I doubt they’re worth quite that much, darling,” she said, a cautious edge to her voice. “And we don’t know for certain that the books really were signed by Dickens.”
Betsy frowned. “But, Mum, what else could it be?” she argued. “There haven’t been any C.D.s in the family!”
“There will be time enough for celebrating if these initials are proven to belong to Charles Dickens,” Aunt Beth said. “Please try to keep your expectations in check. I’d hate for you to be disappointed if we’re wrong.”
“I understand, Aunt Beth,” I replied. But secretly, in my heart, I agreed with Betsy.
What else could the initials possibly mean?
The next morning, Betsy and I were in the middle of a race to see who could make her bed first when Mom knocked on the door.
“Kay, could I have a word with you in my bedroom?” she asked.
“Just a minute!” I said as I rushed to smooth out the blanket. All I had to do was fluff my pillow and—
“Done!” Betsy shrieked before she dissolved into giggles. She flopped onto her freshly made bed. “I win!”
“Did not!” I joked. “See? My bed is neat as a pin, but your blanket’s all wrinkled since you climbed on it!”
Betsy leaped off and smoothed out her blanket once more. “Maybe so . . . but you have to admit that I did finish first.”
“Kay,” Mom said to remind me that she was waiting.