The Forgotten Room

by Karen White

  Not too busy to squire Prunella Pratt to Tosca, thought Lucy, but didn’t say it.

  “Well, there’s this Mr. Ravenel, from Charleston. He has an art gallery down there, and he’s thinking of expanding his operations to New York. Mr. Cromwell is particularly concerned that he should be extended every courtesy. Now”—Mr. Schuyler heaved a long-suffering sigh—“Ravenel just wired to let us know that he arrives in town on Friday.”

  Lucy tilted her head, indicating she was listening.

  Mr. Schuyler fiddled with his silver pen. “Mr. Cromwell is taking him to lunch—but he’s on his own for supper Friday night.” Glancing up, he said, “I’ll be honest with you. I was meant to take him out. But my stepmother’s making a nuisance of herself. And when she makes a nuisance of herself . . . Well, are you sure you don’t want to reconsider your professional stance on smothering?”

  Lucy wasn’t quite sure she liked where this was going. Quickly, she said, “Perhaps Mr. Ravenel might enjoy the opera?”

  Mr. Schuyler pulled a comical face. “From what I’ve heard of the man . . . I doubt it. I’ve spoken to him on the phone. He sounds a bit like Huck Finn. Mark Twain,” he added.

  “I’ve read it.” She didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with Mr. Schuyler on the first day, but . . . “I seem to remember something about whitewashing fences.”

  “You’ve found me out.” Mr. Schuyler cast her a look of mock repentance. “What do you say, Miss Young? Are you willing to cancel your plans on Friday night?”

  Her plans for Friday night included such fascinating activities as washing her stockings and mending her second-best blouse, where a seam had split beneath the arm.

  Mr. Schuyler’s gold cuff links glittered in the light of the window. They were very new, with his monogram engraved with suitable flourishes and curlicues. “It shouldn’t be too onerous,” he said encouragingly. “Just a few cocktails . . . dinner . . . Keep him happy.”

  Lucy could hear her grandmother’s voice. No better than she should be . . . going out to work like a man.

  She’d had employers like that before. But she hadn’t expected it of Philip Schuyler.

  “Would you have asked the same of Meg?”

  “Meg,” said Mr. Schuyler firmly, “is a great girl, but she has an accent that could curdle cream. And that unfortunate fringe. We’re trying to entertain Ravenel, not torture him—even if he is being a damned nuisance.”

  Just what kind of entertainment did he have in mind?

  Taking her silence for assent, Mr. Schuyler leaned back in his chair. “It’s only for Friday night. We just need someone to hold his hand, make sure he has a good time.”

  Lucy fought a wave of disappointment. She’d so wanted to make a good impression. But not at the expense of her self-respect.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Schuyler,” she said, and there was a hint of steel in her voice. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to find someone else. I’m not a good-time girl. And I don’t hold hands.”

  “Not even for the greater good of Cromwell, Polk and Moore?” The charm was turned on full bore.

  Politely but firmly, Lucy said, “I am happy to be of service to the firm—during business hours.”

  She felt sick to her stomach—she couldn’t lose this job, not now—but made herself meet his eyes, coolly, levelly.

  “Well, then.” Sitting back in his chair, Mr. Schuyler regarded her with speculation, and just a hint of admiration. In a very different voice, he said, “Miss Young, I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t myself. I’d trade with you, if I could. What would you rather? Steak at Delmonico’s or opera with my stepmother?”

  Daringly, Lucy said, “I’ve never seen Tosca.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” More seriously, he said, “Are you sure you won’t reconsider? I give you my word that if Ravenel doesn’t behave like a gentleman, I will personally see that he never does business with this firm again.”

  Something about the way he said it made Lucy think of the knight her mother had painted for her, the knight in the mural in the Pratt house, raising his sword against all comers.

  “Well . . .”

  Mr. Schuyler saw his advantage. “If you do this,” he said fervently, “I will owe you the biggest martini Manhattan has to offer.”

  Lucy looked at him from under her lashes. “Martinis are illegal.”

  “Not if you know the right people.” Bees from the trees, Lucy thought dizzily. This was the world her mother had known, a world where people knew people and the ordinary rules didn’t apply, a world away from the mundanities of making sure the rolls were shaped and bread was baked. “What do you say, Miss Young? A dinner in exchange for a drink?”

  It was about winning his confidence, Lucy reminded herself. About winning his confidence and winning her way into those files.

  “All right,” she said slowly, and saw the expression of triumph on Philip Schuyler’s well-bred face. “But only this once.”

  What was one dinner, after all?

  Seven

  JUNE 1944

  Kate

  I felt a meager ray of sun on my face but kept my eyes shut just one more moment; one more moment to extend my dream where I was lying in my comfortable bed in my comfortable house with my mother and father in the room next to mine, my dog, Sassy, sleeping at my feet. There was no war, and no shell-shocked soldiers with missing limbs stumbling through the city, no blackout windows shutting out the light. It was a memory of when I was a girl, a memory of before, and my exhaustion of the last week was making me far too susceptible to having hopeless dreams.

  A scratching sound made its way through my dream state, and briefly I thought it was Sassy’s nails on the wood floor of my old bedroom, trying to dig her way to China. It was a habit Sassy had had since she’d been a puppy, and one my mother would scold her for, usually followed by a threat that she would put Sassy out on the street. But we both knew that Sassy was beloved by both of us, and spoiled rotten to boot, and the worst that would happen would be Sassy getting another soup bone to gnaw on in the kitchen.

  But Sassy was long gone, a victim of a mule pulling a milk wagon that had been spooked by the honking of a car horn. I opened my eyes, staring at the faded chintz of the chaise longue that had been my bed for the last four nights, sure now that the scratching wasn’t in my head but most likely in the walls. Rats!

  I catapulted out of the chaise, catching the hem of my lab coat on the unruly spring, and miraculously landed on the floor with both feet. With one giant leap, I reached behind my desk for the cast-iron skillet that I’d found in the corner of the attic room. Because of its heft and telltale dings on the back of it, I assumed it had probably been used as an effective weapon against all intruders, not just the furry four-legged variety.

  I paused, listening for the scratching again, trying to find which wall it was coming from and hoping the rat wasn’t too big. Not that I was afraid of something like a rat, just that the large ones made such a mess and took time to clean up.

  Slowly, I turned toward the sound and found Captain Ravenel in bed sitting up against plumped pillows, an empty breakfast tray on the table next to him. He was holding his chart, the attached pen poised above it.

  “I hope you have more modern medicine than that to knock me out with,” he said with a soft drawl.

  “I heard scratching . . .” I stopped, suddenly realizing that he wasn’t delirious with fever, and was sitting up in bed and speaking. “How . . . ?”

  “Nurse Hathaway came in about an hour ago, and pronounced my fever broken. I was also starving so she brought me breakfast. No grits, but I managed to eat it all anyway. I’m weak as a foal and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t shoot straight to save my life, but I’m feeling much better.”

  I took a step toward him, too shocked to speak. The night before he’d been clammy with sweat and I’d begun to finall
y admit to myself that Dr. Greeley might have been right all along.

  “But . . . ,” I finally managed to say.

  He looked at the skillet. “You can put that away. I promise you that I’m stronger, but most definitely not strong enough to ravish you. Just strong enough to doodle a little bit with pen and paper while you slept. Nurse Hathaway and I both agreed that we should let you sleep. She said you’ve been taking care of me without a proper rest.” He tilted his head. “Although I must say that your rumpled appearance and sleepy eyes are very alluring. I’m almost tempted to start all over.”

  “Oh,” I said, the skillet sliding to the floor with a thud as my hands reached for my hair. My comb had been dislodged while I’d slept and I was almost grateful for the lack of a mirror in my attic room.

  My gaze moved to his chart and the pen in his hand and I suddenly remembered who I was and who he was. Trying to muster as much authority as I could with my hair half-hanging down my back and my eyes still puffy with sleep, I approached the bed. “Excuse me, Captain. But what are you doing? No one is supposed to mark on your chart except for medical personnel . . .”

  I stopped as I reached his side, realizing the source of the scratching noise. The page had been flipped over to the blank side, but instead of an empty sheet of paper, elegant strokes of a pen like the gossamer threads of a web now filled the middle of it. Leaning closer, I recognized a remarkable likeness of my own face.

  “You’re very good,” I said, my admiration superseding my need to reassert myself as a medical professional.

  His hand began to tremble, the exertion of sitting up and sketching too much for his weakened body. I took the chart from him and settled him back against his pillow, already knowing that I would meticulously copy everything onto a clean chart so I could keep the sketch. I told myself it was so Dr. Greeley wouldn’t see it and make conjectures where none should be, but there was something intimate and familiar about the way Captain Ravenel had drawn my face, something raw. And I remembered again the first time he’d looked at me, and how it seemed as if he knew me.

  “You saved my leg,” he said quietly, moving his foot under the sheet.

  I moved aside the sheet to examine the wound that I had cleaned and rebandaged the night before. The adhesive was loose, telling me that Nurse Hathaway had also already examined the wound, but I needed to see for myself. Pushing aside the bandage, I was amazed by what I saw. Instead of the red inflamed skin around the sutures that I’d grown used to seeing, it was merely pink now, a thin scab already beginning to form. If I’d believed in miracles, I would have said that I had just witnessed one. Or maybe this soldier’s strength of will was more powerful than any medicine.

  I replaced the bandage and the sheet. “I wish I could take credit, but I can’t. It was a group effort by all the nurses and doctors at Stornaway—”

  “It was you,” he said, gently cutting me off.

  I started to protest, but he said, “When I was first brought here, I remember you. It was raining . . .” He closed his eyes and I waited as I remembered, too.

  “You were soaking wet,” he said slowly, his eyes still closed. “And it made your clothing transparent.”

  I sucked in my breath, disturbed and titillated all at the same time. He spoke to me as if we were old acquaintances, as if familiarity was taken for granted. As if a mention of my transparent dress could be said with the same tone of voice as he might use to tell me that I had a crumb on my chin.

  He opened his eyes and I saw there were brown flecks in the marsh green depths, as if even his eye color couldn’t be simple and straightforward. “There was a man, too. A disagreeable man if I’m remembering correctly. You were defying him and saying you would take over my care.”

  I straightened my back, determined to be seen as not a woman, but a professional. “I’m a doctor, and I thought your leg could be saved. And besides, you asked me to.”

  His lopsided smile would have appeared boyish on another face, but there was nothing boyish about Captain Cooper Ravenel. “Do you always do what you’re asked?”

  “Hardly.” I moved back from the bed, determined to put space between us. “I’ve written to your family in Charleston to let them know of your injury and where you are. I wasn’t sure if the Army had notified them, or if your family expected you in South Carolina by now. You weren’t supposed to come here. It was a bit of an emergency and I’m afraid the paperwork might not have been a priority.” I put the chart down on the chaise longue and began reparations to my hair before anybody else saw me. “We haven’t heard anything back yet, but it’s been less than a week. I would expect a telegram any day now, or they’re already on their way to see you.”

  A shadow flickered behind his eyes, and I wondered if he was thinking of his Victorine and wondering why she hadn’t written back, or if she was on the first train to New York. I hoped she was. The sooner she got here, the sooner I could refocus my efforts on being the best doctor I could be without the frivolous thoughts and feelings this particular patient seemed to evoke.

  There was a small knock on the door before it was pushed open by Nurse Hathaway carrying a tray of syringes and small paper cups of water. “Good morning, Doctor,” she said cheerily as she made her way to the captain’s bed. “I hope you don’t mind that I let you sleep. I took Captain Ravenel’s vitals and his fever was completely gone. And he was complaining of being hungry and he managed to talk me into bringing him breakfast. I brought it from the doctors’ dining room since the food there is typically more appetizing. Dr. Greeley wasn’t there yet, so it’s probably his. I saved yours in the kitchen so nobody would eat it. I hope that’s all right.”

  She winked at me, and as much as I wanted to, I didn’t wink back. “Thank you, Nurse. If he throws it all up because his stomach isn’t ready for solid foods yet, I’ll know who to get to come clean it up.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” She busied herself with the patient, taking his temperature again and giving him water to drink. “I also thought you should know that Dr. Greeley is on the warpath this morning. Apparently a file was taken from his office and he wants to know by whom. But I think he’ll discover that he simply misplaced it, and if he searches for it again he’ll find it where he thought he left it.”

  She picked up the breakfast tray and placed it outside the room before picking up the medicine tray again and heading toward the door. “I’ll be back later to sponge bathe the patient. Unless you’d prefer to do it again?”

  Heat flooded my cheeks as I remembered the frequent cold baths I’d given Captain Ravenel to bring down his fever. I hadn’t even paid attention to his muscled torso or long, lean legs. At least, not in a nonmedical way.

  “That will be all, Nurse Hathaway. Thank you. For everything.”

  I moved to the windows to push aside the blackout curtain, hoping my complexion would return to normal by the time I was done. The city sprang to life beneath the window seven stories above the street. Since nearly the beginning of the war, New York at night became a tomb of dark-clad people moving silently throughout the dimly lit city, headlights of cars half-covered with black paint. But in the daylight people became like hibernating animals after a long winter, emerging from their caves into the sunshine. I wondered how much longer the war could last. With news of German defeats and the success of the Allied invasion of France, I felt sure it would be over soon. But we’d all been saying that for more than a year.

  When I turned around again, my gaze fell on the sketch. I picked it up, unable to resist, and studied it as my mother had once taught me to study artwork. The skill of the artist can be determined from the lightness of his paint strokes and the delicate lines of his sketch work. “Are you a professional artist, Captain Ravenel? You really are very good.”

  He shook his head, his face marred with something I could only think of as regret. “No. I just dabble in pen-and-ink sketches. Before Uncle Sam asked
me to visit Europe and shoot Germans, I was an art dealer with a gallery in Charleston. My grandfather, however, was a well-known painter. You may have even heard of him. Augustus Ravenel.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, wondering if I’d heard correctly. I remembered how his last name had seemed familiar to me, and now I knew why. “Augustus Ravenel was your grandfather?” I sat down in the chaise, mindful of the errant spring. “My mother loved his work. Whenever one of his paintings appeared in a gallery here in New York, she would take me so I could study it. I always wondered why we didn’t own any of his work. My father was a lawyer, and I know we could have afforded a small painting at least. But my mother wouldn’t even consider it. I daresay it would be an odd coincidence if I owned a piece of your grandfather’s artwork now, and here you are, my patient.”

  He smiled, his odd eyes watching me closely. “You said your mother would take you to galleries so you could study the artwork. Are you an artist, too, Doctor?”

  “Sadly, no, despite my mother’s deepest wishes. She had a love for art although no talent for it. She hoped that I might, so I spent years taking art lessons, but I was a severe disappointment. And then my father died of lung cancer when he was only fifty, and that sealed my fate. I decided then that I was going to become a doctor.”

  “That couldn’t have been easy, going against your mother’s wishes. And to pursue a career not many women aspire to. You must be a very strong woman.”

  When Dr. Greeley said the same thing, it wasn’t meant as a compliment. But coming from Captain Ravenel’s mouth, it sounded as if he were calling me Cleopatra, the Queen of Sheba, and Mata Hari all at once. I felt my cheeks coloring again, and looked down at the sketch to hide my face. “The likeness is remarkable. If I hadn’t known for sure that you’ve been unconscious for most of the time you’ve been here, I’d accuse you of spending a lot of time studying me.”