The English Wife

by Lauren Willig

  The breath misted around Mrs. Van Duyvil’s mouth like a dragon in a storybook. “You married into them when you married into this family.”

  If Georgie hadn’t wanted a divorce before, she would certainly be demanding one now. She spoke in her most Annabelle voice, all clipped hauteur. “And I’ll be free of them when I’m no longer in this family.”

  “No.” Mrs. Van Duyvil moved so quickly that the jewels on her breast formed a rainbow blur. She snatched the dagger from Bay’s belt, holding it up so that the tip dazzled in front of Georgie’s eyes. “There will be no divorce.”

  Just a bauble, Bay had said. But it was a bauble with a very sharp point. Mrs. Van Duyvil glittered with diamonds and rage, as if every irritant, every slight, had come to this, had narrowed to this moment, to Georgie. The rage of a monarch who saw his kingdom slipping from his grasp, his power waning.

  “Put down the knife, Mother,” said Bay, but Mrs. Van Duyvil didn’t pay any notice.

  Georgie took a step back, keeping one eye on the dagger. “If divorce was good enough for Henry VIII, surely, it’s good enough for a Van Duyvil.”

  Her mother-in-law was not impressed.

  “I will not,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil, stalking forward as Georgie retreated, “have you dragging our good name through the mud.”

  “There needn’t be a scandal,” said Bay quietly, his eyes meeting Georgie’s. “We can divorce in Rhode Island. Their divorce laws are laxer than New York’s. And the Newport house is in my name. We’ll have no trouble establishing residency.”

  “There will be no divorce.” Georgie’s back bumped into the stone of the balustrade. The tip of the dagger pressed against the silver lace edging the square bodice, silver against silver. “If you won’t take your wife in hand, I will.”

  Georgie sucked in her breath at the touch of the cold steel.

  “You don’t want to do this,” said Georgie breathlessly. “Think what a scandal it would cause if you skewered your son’s wife.”

  Bay cast her a warning look. “Put down the knife, Mother.”

  “Not,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil, “until you both see sense. There cannot be a divorce. Not now. Not ever. Do you want people to speculate? To know?”

  The point pressed deeper. Georgie could feel the cool damp of blood, sticking to the silver lace. Just a trickle. Surely, she wouldn’t go farther than that. But the knife was sharp, frighteningly sharp.

  Bay put a hand on his mother’s arm, speaking in his most sensible voice. “This isn’t your decision to make.”

  Mrs. Van Duyvil’s lip curled. “You’ll just let her do this? You’ll let her make a mockery of you? Of us?”

  Bay’s eyes met Georgie’s, and, for just a moment, she saw in them what she had seen all those years ago, something that made her feel as though, after a long journey, she had come home. “If that’s what she wants.” In a moment of ill-judged levity, he added, “After all, if Mrs. Vanderbilt can do it—”

  “Do not talk to me about that woman!” Mrs. Van Duyvil turned sharply towards her son, letting Georgie go so abruptly that Georgie stumbled back against the balustrade, catching herself just in time to see Bay stagger back, both hands closed around something that was protruding from his chest, a look of shock on his face.

  Mrs. Van Duyvil’s face was no less shocked than Bay’s, her mouth a red circle in the midst of her white face paint.

  “Georgie,” Bay said and tried to reach for her, but he stumbled instead, weaving like a drunkard.

  The sapphire in the hilt of the dagger gleamed darkly between Bay’s fingers as he slumped to his knees.

  “Bay!” Regaining her wits, Georgie flung herself towards him, but two hands caught her squarely in the chest, pushing her back hard enough to knock the breath out of her.

  “You.” The words came out as a hiss. “This was your doing.”

  And that was the last Georgie heard as her mother-in-law’s hands pushed her again, knocking her back, over the balustrade. She grabbed at the ropes of pearls, hanging from her mother-in-law’s breast, but caught only something cold and hard, that came off in her hand and clattered to the ground as the force catapulted her over, over, backwards over the balustrade.

  “Georgie…” She thought she heard her name on Bay’s lips, but then there was nothing but the sensation of falling.

  Falling, falling down deep into the icy waters below.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Cold Spring, 1899

  February 11

  “Do you know what it’s like to witness the death of your child? Can you imagine it, Mr. Burke?” Mrs. Van Duyvil addressed herself to Burke, as though delivering the story for posterity. Not to her daughter, not to her niece. To the press. “Not an ordinary death, not a death by mischance or disease. A death by malice. Murder.”

  “You came back to the ballroom.” Anne rose from her chair, her fingers tight on the embroidered arm. “You came back to the ballroom. You sent me to look for him.”

  Mrs. Van Duyvil didn’t look at her niece. She kept her gaze fixed on Burke. “Do you know what it is to see your child murdered? My child. My only son.”

  “You left him there.” It was Anne’s voice, raw and fearful. “You left him there and sent me to find him.”

  Janie felt as though she were falling, clutching at handholds. Her mother had known. Her mother had seen it all. And yet she had come back to the ballroom and danced. “Why didn’t you say? If you knew—”

  Mrs. Van Duyvil glanced fiercely at her, and Janie saw her mother’s face clench in an attempt to maintain control. “Your brother was dead. Did it matter?”

  “Yes!” Janie burst out. “If someone had come sooner, perhaps—”

  “He was dead.” Mrs. Van Duyvil’s voice cracked through the room.

  “He was still alive when we found him. Lying in the cold by himself.” Janie could feel herself shaking. How long had it taken before Anne had found her in the supper room? How long until they discovered Bay? “If you had raised the alarm … if you had let anyone know—”

  “No.” Mrs. Van Duyvil shook her head. “No.”

  “Oh, God. Was that why you sent me?” Anne was staring at her aunt with a combination of loathing and horror. “I always knew you hated me, but I never knew how much. You wanted them to think I did it. You wanted them to think I killed Bay.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” For a moment, Mrs. Van Duyvil sounded like herself again, uttering her favorite phrase. And then her voice faltered. “I … there would have been questions. Do you think I wanted my grandson’s mother branded a murderess? You knew nothing. It was safer that way.”

  “Safer for whom?” With her hair glowing red gold in the lamplight, Anne looked like an avenging angel, the sort who wielded sword rather than harp. “Not for Bay.”

  “Bay was dead.” Janie’s mother wrung her hands, shaking as though she had been the one in the cold. “He was gone. Gone. What good would it do? Let them think it was a tramp, a vagrant, a robber.”

  But they hadn’t thought that. Bay had been branded a murderer. The papers, the inquest, all the doubt and the questions and the worry. Through a fog, Janie felt Burke’s hand beneath her elbow, steadying her. “All these weeks—not knowing. With the papers saying such awful things about Bay. How could you just stand by and watch it happen?”

  “He was dead!” The windows rang with the words. Mrs. Van Duyvil glanced over her shoulder, a strangely furtive look. “She killed him, that woman. She took my son away from me. She took my son away from me and she killed him.”

  “No.” It was Anne who spoke, Anne who took a step forward, her eyes fixed on her aunt. “She loved him. They may not have been perfect lovers, but she loved him. Why would Annabelle kill Bay?”

  “Because she wasn’t Annabelle,” interjected Giles Lacey, rubbing his wrists. “I keep telling you that.”

  “Loved him?” Mrs. Van Duyvil couldn’t seem to stay still. She paced the room, her long skirt brushing the carpet, bumping against the fur
niture. “Ha! She wanted a divorce. She wanted a divorce so that she could run off with that architect of hers. Ridiculous man. He can’t even design a working chimney! Did she really think he would waltz her off to an absurd lover’s paradise?” Recalling herself, she raised her chin, saying, “Bay wouldn’t have it, of course. He told her no.”

  “And she stabbed him?” said Janie. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. She could see Annabelle and Bay together, Annabelle’s head barely reaching Bay’s shoulder, small-boned and slight, her wrists nearly as slim as Viola’s. Janie looked at Burke. “She was so little.”

  Anne’s face was very still, her eyes very bright. “No,” she said. “Annabelle would never have run off with David Pruyn.”

  “Why not?” demanded Mrs. Van Duyvil. “Do you think that you’re the only one with poor judgment? Just because you are entirely lost to propriety doesn’t mean that Bayard meant to follow in your footsteps. He knew what was owed to his name. It was that woman that he married—she was the one who caused the trouble.”

  “No,” said Anne again. She took a step forward, her eyes fixed on Janie’s mother’s face. “Did she stab him, Aunt Alva? Was that what happened? She took a knife and stabbed Bay in the chest while you looked on and did nothing?”

  “It—” Mrs. Van Duyvil faltered in her erratic path. She looked over her shoulder again, furtive, waiting. “It all happened very quickly.”

  “Was there a struggle? Did Bay fight her? He was a tall man, Bay, and Annabelle was a little thing. It would have been a very unequal contest. But Bay would have been trying not to hurt her. That’s a great disadvantage in a quarrel, isn’t it, Aunt Alva?”

  Janie’s mother breathed in through her nose. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No? Don’t you want to put it all to rest? Let us know exactly what happened so we can sleep at night? Or is it because you’re lying?” Anne stopped, her face distorted with grief and anger. “You know as well as I do that David Pruyn was never Annabelle’s lover.”

  “Don’t be—”

  “Ridiculous?” Anne provided. “What’s ridiculous is the idea that David Pruyn wanted anything to do with Annabelle. I was the one who introduced Bay to David. Did you know that? David didn’t give a fig for Annabelle—only for Bay. Do I need to make it plainer for you, Aunt Alva? Or did you know already?”

  Janie felt Burke’s quick exhalation, saw the quick disgust on Giles Lacey’s face. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Anne didn’t waste breath in insults. She kept her eyes locked on Mrs. Van Duyvil’s. “David wasn’t Annabelle’s lover. He was Bay’s. Annabelle kept their secret for them.”

  There was a rumbling in Janie’s ears. It took her a moment to realize that the sound wasn’t coming from her head, but from the chimney. The smoke was thicker, bits of dust mixing with the coal.

  “Not anymore.” Her mother’s voice rose over the din. “She was going to divorce him! I couldn’t allow that! Do you know what people would have said if she’d gone through with it? Can you imagine the scandal?”

  Burke’s hand closed hard around Janie’s shoulder. “Better to have a dead son than a disgraced one?”

  “You.” Janie’s mother whirled to face Burke. “None of this goes into your disgraceful scandal sheet. It’s pure rumor, malicious rumor. Anne doesn’t know what she’s talking about. If I see one word of it, I’ll … I’ll—”

  “Kill him?” provided Anne.

  Black taffeta rustled as Janie’s mother flung herself at Anne, grabbing her by the neck and shaking, hard. “Shut … your … mouth.”

  Burke was fast, but Lacey was faster. It took both of them to pry Mrs. Van Duyvil off her niece’s throat. They dragged her away from Anne, one holding each arm, as Mrs. Van Duyvil’s voice rose against the howling of the wind. “It was her fault, her fault, all her fault. I never would have … it was an accident! She made me do it! It should have been her!”

  Anne breathed in with a terrible gasping sound, her hands at her throat. She stumbled backwards, catching herself against the side of a chair.

  “No. No, no.” It took Janie a moment to realize that the word was coming out of her own mouth, over and over. She pressed her hand against her lips, as though that could make it stop. “How could you? Bay.”

  “Don’t you speak to me of my son.” Mrs. Van Duyvil yanked her arms away from her captors, her entire body shaking with grief and rage. Her fingers clawed at her collar, sending jet beads scattering across the carpet. “Don’t you think I see his face before me every moment of every day? My son. My son.”

  There was something terrifying about the scope of her mother’s grief, grief without consolation. Hecuba, rending her soot-stained clothes at the gates of Troy; David crying for Absalom.

  “You might,” said Anne, her voice shaking, “have thought of that before you stabbed him.”

  “I didn’t … the knife … it was her fault! All her fault!” Behind her came an ominous rumbling, as though the masonry of the house itself were murmuring in agreement. Mrs. Van Duyvil raised her arms to the heavens. “I would kill her again if I could! I hope she’s burning in all the fires of hell!”

  A fusillade of dust and ash exploded into the room. Someone shouted out. Janie blundered into a piece of furniture, blinded by the ash, her chest on fire. She couldn’t hear; she couldn’t see. She groped in the smoke, her eyes streaming. Something rumbled and screeched, like demons run amok, breaking and shattering, shouting and clawing.

  There was a cry, and glass shattered, sending freezing air driving into the room. Janie wrapped her arms around her middle, staggering in the direction of cold. Cold meant outdoors, and outdoors meant away from the smoke and dust.

  Janie’s cheek stung, singed by flying ash. Through her stinging eyes, she could see Giles Lacey doubled over, coughing up smoke; Anne standing by the French door she’d broken open, cradling one arm, breathing deeply of the freezing air. Her mother sat on the floor, holding one hand to the gash on her forehead.

  “She’s come from hell.” Janie’s mother was staring at the blood on her fingers, her hair fallen from its pins, her black taffeta gray with ash. “She’s come from hell to haunt me.”

  “What in the devil?” gasped Giles Lacey.

  “Not the devil. The chimney.” Sparks had lit on the furniture, chewing at the upholstery, the carpet, the drapes. Janie ran to go stamp one out, but Burke grabbed her by the arm. “We need to get everyone out. Now.”

  Anne yanked at the remains of the French door. Glass crunched beneath her heels.

  “This way,” she began, but shied back as a pile of masonry tumbled down outside the French doors with in a rain of soot and mortar. Bricks fell to the pavement like hail.

  Burke swore beneath his breath. “Quick.” Reversing direction, he ran with Janie to the double doors to the passage, Anne on their heels, Giles Lacey half pulling, half carrying a stunned Mrs. Van Duyvil. “With this wind, it won’t take long for the whole place to go up.”

  The air was relatively clear in the hall. Janie took a choking breath, staring at Burke with fear-filled eyes. “The children. They’re in the nursery.”

  “Where?” Burke didn’t waste time with extraneous words.

  “On the third floor.” Two stories above the parlor, on the same flue. Janie didn’t wait for Burke to say anything else; she lifted her skirts and took off running. Behind her, she could hear Burke’s voice, raised in command. “Lacey! Come with me. Mrs. Newland, you get the servants out.”

  If Anne demurred or argued, Janie didn’t hear it. She was already halfway up the stairs, trying to remember the plan of the house, wishing that she had paid more attention when Bay had offered to give her the tour. The nurseries faced east and south.

  “Is there anyone else in the house?” Burke caught up with her, taking the stairs two steps at a time.

  “The Gerritts.” The higher they went, the more strongly Janie smelled smoke. She had to struggle to form the words, although she
wasn’t sure if it was the smoke or the fear strangling her. “The kitchen maid. Mother’s maid.”

  The grand stair only went to the second floor. For the third, one needed to take a smaller side stair. The handle was hot to her hand. Janie wrenched open the door and began coughing again as smoke billowed down.

  Burke pulled her back, slamming the door. “Is there another way?”

  “The servants’ stairs,” said Lacey with the authority of the man who owned the original house. “If we go back through the west wing…”

  Janie shook her head. “Stair. Annabelle’s room. She had a private stair put through to the night nursery.” Janie took a step back and nearly bumped into her mother, there behind her. “What are you—?”

  “Do you think I would leave Bay’s son?” Her mother’s hair was gray with ashes, her dress torn. “Don’t just stand there. Go.”

  “Annabelle’s room is this way,” Janie said and didn’t wait to see if her mother followed. Surely, her mother wouldn’t—? No. She couldn’t even think that. But she took comfort in Burke’s presence beside her as they careened into Annabelle’s rooms, nearly crying at the sound of a familiar voice crying, “But I need Polly!”

  Annabelle’s suite was thick with smoke, but through it, Janie could make out the children’s nurse, Bast in her arms, Viola fighting to try to get away from her grasp. Janie ran forward, but Burke was faster. He snatched Bast up and thrust him into Janie’s arms just in time to catch the nurse before she toppled. There was a gash on the nurse’s forehead and soot on her uniform.

  “I need to get Polly!”

  Janie snagged Viola by the back of her pinafore, hoisting her protesting into her arms.

  “Hush, sweetling.” She locked her arms around Viola, hiding her tears in her hair. “We’ll get you a new duck. But now we need to go.”

  “Come on,” said Lacey, and kicked the door open, only to shy back as, with a roar and a crack, a beam fell from the hall ceiling, knocking over the oil lamp that sat on a table outside Annabelle’s room. A lake of fire spread around them.

  “This way.” Janie’s mother’s voice was hoarse with smoke but as autocratic as ever. It was impossible to imagine her as the clawing, shouting thing Janie had seen in the parlor. She gestured them through Annabelle’s bedroom to her sitting room, where the window looked out over the breakfast room. “There’s a ledge.”