by Sarah Jio
CHAPTER 28
Flora
November 4, 1940
November began with a rare snowfall. The children, of course, were delighted, running out after dinner to build a snowman right in the drive. Fortunately, I’d taken their winter coats out of storage and had them cleaned.
Desmond had joined his father in town for some business earlier that day. They hadn’t yet returned. I’d noticed how they left in cheerful accord. “It’s good to see them getting along,” Mrs. Dilloway had commented while clearing the breakfast dishes.
The children couldn’t get enough of the snowflakes, so I decided to let them play a bit longer before bedtime. Just this once. I slipped into my coat and joined them on the terrace. Janie and Katherine stuck out their tongues, collecting flakes in their mouths, while Abbott and Nicholas were engaged in a serious snowball fight. As the wind picked up, I worried the frigid air would be too hard on Abbott; he hadn’t fully recovered from his illness. “Just a few more minutes,” I said, “and then let’s go in for some hot tea. I don’t want you children to get frostbite.”
Nicholas suddenly stopped and pointed toward the sky. “What’s that, Miss Lewis?” he asked.
I looked up, but I didn’t see anything in particular, just darkness. “What did you see?” I said.
“There,” he said, pointing at a low-flying plane in the distance. Its lights shone through the darkness.
My heart began to race. “Children!” I screamed. “Inside, now!”
I led them into the basement through the servants’ entrance.
“Dear Lord!” Mrs. Dilloway cried. “Do you think it’s a . . . ?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Beardsley said. “But we must dim the lights, just in case.” He flipped a switch on the wall and the house went dark.
Janie leaned against me, and I could feel her body trembling. “It’s all right, sweetie,” I said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Are we going to die?” Katherine asked.
“Of course not, honey,” I said, though I hoped she didn’t hear the quiver in my voice.
I heard a sniffling sound behind me. I turned around, and in the darkness I could just make out Abbott wiping his eyes. “Father and Desmond are out there,” he said. “What if, what if they—”
“Don’t fret, dear Abbott,” I said. “Your father and Desmond will make it home soon; I’m certain of it.”
Abbott buried his head in his hands, then looked up again tearfully. “Desmond will be leaving for war soon, I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose,” I said wistfully. In the past weeks, Abbott had warmed to his elder brother, and I was glad of it.
“I’m ashamed of the way I treated Desmond,” he said, “when he came home.”
“Why did you act that way, Abbott?”
He took a deep breath before saying, “I overheard Father speaking to Beardsley in his study after Mum died. They were discussing the business of the estate. He said that Desmond wasn’t his real son, and that he’d cheat me out of inheriting the manor someday.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How can he not be his son? He’s—”
Mrs. Dilloway cleared her throat. “Perhaps we might talk about something else, shall we?”
“Yes,” I said quickly.
Before bed that night, I knocked on Mrs. Dilloway’s bedroom door. “Pardon me,” I said in the doorway. “May I come in?”
She invited me to sit in the threadbare blue chair while she sat on the bed.
“What Abbott said about Desmond today,” I said, “is it true?”
Her eyes would neither confirm nor deny. They only looked lost in memories. “Lord Livingston met her Ladyship in London at a society ball,” she said. “She was visiting from America, and he fell for her the moment he laid eyes on her. Some say it was her fortune he loved, but that was never the case. He loved her. Madly and deeply. But he didn’t know her past.”
“Her past?”
“She had a son,” she said. “In America.”
“Desmond.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Lady Anna was only a girl of fifteen when he was born. Just a few years older than our own Katherine. The father was a farmhand at the family’s home in Charleston. She wanted to run off with him, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it. They sent him away, and after the baby was born, they put her on a ship to attend an exclusive school for girls in London. She never forgave her parents for taking Desmond from her.”
“And Lord Livingston didn’t know when he married her?”
“No,” Mrs. Dilloway replied. “It tarnished his view of her when he learned of it. He couldn’t look at her the same way after that, especially after Desmond came to live at the manor. His presence fueled his Lordship’s paranoia. He was irreparably hurt, and Lady Anna only sunk deeper into her own sadness. She spent much of her time in her gardens after that. And he, well . . . there were many women.”
“And Desmond?”
“He’d been in America all those years, and I don’t think he was more than nine years old when he came to live here. By the way Lady Anna told it, she loved him at first sight. But Lord Livingston never warmed to Desmond, even after Anna begged him to.”
“And what about you?” I asked. “How did you bear to live here, given the way you felt for—”
“I’ve almost given my notice a hundred times,” she said. “There were moments when it felt too difficult to bear.” She sighed. “But I decided to stay, to devote myself to Lady Anna. It was my penance, my punishment. I promised her I’d look out for her gardens, always, and I’m bound to that.”
“Did she ever know about you and . . . ?”
Mrs. Dilloway looked grieved. “I don’t know,” she said. “But if she did, I pray that she’s forgiven me.” She shook her head, her face deeply distressed. “Women had been going missing in town,” she said. “And, I think she had her suspicions.”
“What did she think happened, exactly?”
“A few of the girls that Lord Livingston had”—she cleared her throat—“entertained, well, they vanished.”
“And Lady Anna thought that he had something to do with it?”
“She didn’t know what to believe,” she said. “Nor did I.”
I sat down, feeling weak. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
She gave me a queer look. “You must not understand, Miss Lewis,” she said. “A servant never betrays her master, no matter what the stakes.”
CHAPTER 29
Addison
Darkness engulfed me like a trench coat two sizes too big. I squinted, trying to make out the scene. Where am I? Crickets chirped in the distance. The clouds had parted to reveal a stream of moonlight that filtered through the trees, just enough to illuminate the spiderweb pattern of the cracked windshield and the spot where my head had made impact earlier. The accident. I touched my hand to my face and felt fresh blood. I shivered. How long have I been here? Hours? Days? I tried to lift my legs but they still wouldn’t move, and then I felt a burning sensation in my feet, followed by a deep pain in my stomach. My God, I’m pinned!
I swallowed hard, and winced at the dry ache in my throat. I noticed a water bottle on the floor near my feet, and I inched my fingers closer. Almost there, just a little farther. I thought of the Pilates classes my friend Emma was always dragging me to. Stretch, Addison. Finally, my fingertips reached the mouth of the bottle. I grasped it with trembling fingers and brought it up, then twisted the cap off and held it to my lips. A few drops of water trickled into my mouth before I lost hold of the bottle and it fell to the floor, rolling under the seat, past my reach.
The moon disappeared behind a cloud again, and a thunderclap sounded overhead. “Dear God!” I cried. “If you can hear me, please, please don’t let me die like this. Please bring me back to Rex.” I let out a sob. “Please, God, giv
e me a sign that everything will be all right.”
When I opened my eyes, a ray of moonlight shone on the tree branch that had earlier impaled the windshield—a camellia, just a common variety, light pink, with an unremarkable yellow stamen. I’d seen hundreds of them over the years. But that night, I had never laid eyes on a thing of such beauty. Thunder, this time louder, filled the countryside anew, and I watched as a single pink petal fell into my lap. I listened as raindrops began to fall on the roof of the car. At first they made polite pecking noises overhead, and then they grew louder, faster, falling in an angry torrent. I closed my eyes tightly, thinking of Anna, Flora, letting the sound lull me to sleep.
CHAPTER 30
Flora
November 5, 1940
“What’s America like?” Nicholas asked me at dinner.
I felt a pang of homesickness as I recalled the way New York looked from the bakery’s window, thinking about Papa standing behind the counter and Mama fussing with the dinner rolls in the window display. “It’s a wonderful place,” I said.
“Will you take us there someday?” he asked.
I gave him a squeeze. “Maybe someday,” I said. “Now, run along upstairs with your sister. I’ll be up to meet you in the nursery.”
I carried their plates to the kitchen, and nearly ran into Mr. Humphrey, who was dropping a sack into the rubbish bin.
I brushed against the side of his coat. “Pardon me,” I said, as an envelope fell from his pocket.
He scrambled to pick it up, but recognizing the handwriting immediately, I grabbed it first: one of my letters to Mama and Papa. It had been torn at the edge. “Mr. Humphrey,” I said, startled. “I don’t understand. This should have been mailed weeks ago. Why do you—”
“I’m ever so sorry, miss,” he said. “I didn’t want you to find out, but now I have no choice but to tell you. Lord Livingston asked me to keep them.”
I shook my head. “Why?”
He shrugged apologetically. “He asked me to keep them all. He read this one in the car on his ride back in from London.”
“It’s despicable,” I said, scowling.
“You have every right to be angry.”
“Well,” I said, collecting myself, “I’m glad to know his true colors.”
“The telephone’s right here,” Mr. Beardsley said, pointing to a table in the butler’s pantry. He smiled apologetically as if he knew all that had happened. “If Lord Livingston has a problem with it, I’ll have the cost deducted from my paycheck.”
“You’re too kind,” I said before dialing the operator and asking her to connect me with the dry cleaner next to my parents’ bakery. Eli could get a message to them.
“Eli!” I cried. “It’s Flora. Flora Lewis. . . . Yes, listen, Eli, I’m calling from England. . . . Yes, England. . . . Yes, I’m fine. . . . I need you to go get my mother. Can you do that?”
I put my hand over the receiver. “He’s going to get her! I can’t believe I’ve waited so long.”
A moment later, my mother picked up the phone. “Flora?” Her voice was like medicine for my soul. My knees weakened, and Mr. Beardsley pulled his chair out for me.
“Mama!” I cried. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Oh, Flora,” she said. The line crackled, reminding me that we were separated by an ocean. “We’ve been so worried.”
“Oh, Mama, I have so much to tell you,” I said. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Where are you?” I could hear her muffled sniffles. “Are you safe?”
“Yes, yes, I’m safe. I took a job as a nanny caring for three children in the English countryside.”
“Why didn’t you write?”
“I did,” I said. “But the letters, well”—I looked at Mr. Beardsley—“the letters were never sent. But please know that I have thought of you every day. I just assumed you were too busy at the bakery to write.”
“Oh, honey,” she said. “When you left, I was so frightened for you. But I hoped you were making an adventure for yourself. Your father believed you would. I’m more thickheaded.”
“How is Papa?” I asked.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Your father’s taken ill.”
“Mama, what is it?”
“His lungs. They’ve weakened, probably from breathing in flour for so many years. The doctor says that with rest, he might recover.” She began to weep. “Oh, Flora. I pray he will.”
“Oh, Mama!” I cried. “I’ll come home. I’ll do anything I can to get home.”
“But how will you, honey? The war’s shut down all ship passage.”
“I’ll find a way. I have to.”
The next morning, Mrs. Dilloway looked after the children in the nursery while I went up to Lord Livingston’s study. “Oh, Flora,” he said as he looked up from his desk, a bit surprised. “So nice to see you this morning.”
“I know about the letters,” I said quickly, getting right to the point.
He looked down at his desk.
“How could you?” I continued. “And now I learn that my father is sick. He may be dying, and I didn’t even know it!”
“Well, then I shall turn the tables,” he countered. “How could you?”
I sat down in the chair in front of his desk. “You know?”
“I do,” he said.
“For how long?”
“I’ve known for some time now,” he said. “Of course, I only became suspicious after you found Anna’s book. And then my man in London traced you to a con man by the name of Philip Price.” He leaned back in his chair, grinning at me as if this amused him very much. “I wanted to see if you could go through with it. I wanted to see if you had it in you.” He reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a folded square of paper. He placed it on the desk and unfolded it so I could see it. “Were you looking for this?”
It was the missing page from Lady Anna’s book.
“I decided a long time ago that I could never betray you or the children,” I said. My chin quivered.
Lord Livingston smiled coldly. “But you thought about it, didn’t you?” He crumpled the page and tossed it in the wastebasket below his desk.
“No,” I said. “That’s not true at all. I fell in love with them; I fell in love with all of you. And Desmond.”
“And what will he think of you now,” he said, reaching into his desk again, “after he finds out the hideous truth about you?”
My heart beat faster. “And what about the truth about you?” I countered. “All those women, and the ones who disappeared?” When I saw the look on his face, I wished I could retract the statement.
He shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, turning to his desk drawer, where he pulled out my letters to Mama and Papa. Months’ worth of information, tied up in twine. My cheeks burned as I reached for the stack of letters, before running out the door.
“Wait, Flora,” he called after me.
I ran to the foyer.
I ran past the driveway and down the hillside, without knowing my destination. And then I saw the orchard. It was snowing again, but I didn’t care. With each step I took, I distanced myself from the sadness of the house. I couldn’t bear it anymore. Had Anna felt such sorrow when she escaped into her beloved orchard? I gazed out at the camellias. They looked like confections dusted with powdered sugar.
I continued on the path, turning toward the old carriage house. I ran to the door, pulling it open. It wasn’t locked this time. Inside, the hooks along the walls held rope, a saw, garden shears, and other tools. A large burlap sack lay on the ground near a small interior door in the far wall. I opened the door and looked inside, gasping when I saw a cryptic message painted in deep red on the shiplap of the back wall: “For the flowers shall be anointed with her blood, and spring forth beauty.”
I hea
rd the crack of a branch outside. My breathing hastened, sending out puffs of fog into the frigid air. I have to get out of here. I opened the door slowly, stepping outside, and I noticed a second set of footprints in the snow. Fresh footprints. I looked right, then left, and decided to follow them. “Who’s there?” I called out. My words immediately evaporated into the snowy air.
Behind the south side of the carriage house, I spotted a camellia I hadn’t noticed before. And just under a lower branch, a speck of pink caught my eye. I walked closer. And, there, dangling on a dainty branch, a flower emerged. It was just a small blossom, but stunning nonetheless, white with pink tips. I gasped. The Middlebury Pink.
“A snow flower.” The deep voice reverberated in the air behind me.
I spun around to find Desmond.
“It’s why she loved camellias so much,” he said. “They bloom when nothing else does.”
“What are you doing down here?” I asked, a little frightened.
He took off his coat and wrapped it around me, as he always did, before turning me to face him. I looked up at his face, so strong and sure, a face I could look at for a lifetime and never grow tired of, and yet, could I trust him? He took my hands in his. “Your fingers are like ice,” he said, rubbing my hands briskly between his, just like the night he told me he loved me, except everything felt different now.
“I’m going home,” I said.
“I don’t understand,” he said, obviously wounded. “Why?”
“My father is ill. He needs me. I don’t know if I’ll be able to board a ship, given the war, but I’m certainly going to try.”
Desmond turned away from me. “You know you’ll break my heart if you go,” he said. “Break it into a thousand pieces.”
“I don’t want to.”
He turned back to face me. “What can I do to convince you to stay?”
“I’m sorry, Desmond,” I said, “I have to go.” As deeply as I cared for him, I was weary, too weary. And frightened.