by Maureen Lang
In hopes of her effort at measurement not appearing blatantly obvious, Meg quietly opened the door and, seeing the pavement empty, walked outside. Marking the spot from the front door, she started walking, silently counting the paces to the edge of this front portion that halted at the white cornerstones.
Four extra steps farther from outside than from inside that hall.
Of course she couldn’t be exactly sure of her guess, but she’d been careful to take the same approximate stride inside as out. There seemed to be a corner of the office unaccounted for, allowing at least the possibility of some kind of secret room. Surely whatever was hidden couldn’t be a very large area. Perhaps only large enough to host a safe or a closet of some kind. Large enough for Nelson to be inside when she’d first entered the library.
Short of counting off closer to the actual length of the wall along the house—where a stone fence stood in the way—Meg had done her best. There was certainly reason to suspect a corner of the room was hidden from the casual observer. She turned back to the house.
“Change your mind?”
Meg looked up to see Geoffrey, top hat and gloves in place, though he removed his hat with a courteously friendly bow once he stopped in front of her.
“Weren’t you going to the park? Or were you? It’s a long walk from here.”
“I—did think about it. But I’ve forgotten my gloves.”
“And your hat,” he said. “Are you sure you were going somewhere? Or did you just come outside to catch my eye?”
“I didn’t see you at all,” she said, instantly wishing she hadn’t sounded so cross. “Were you out here the entire time?”
“No, I saw you from my office.” He pointed. “From upstairs. Of course, I call it an office, but I don’t actually work there. Mother wants me to keep up on my studies so when I leave for college, I won’t be too far behind others my age.”
Setting aside both annoyance at being caught and relief that he mustn’t think her presence outside too odd, she took advantage of the opportunity for casual conversation. “Why haven’t you gone off to college, Geoffrey?”
“Because it seems like a silly ritual to me. My parents will pay a small fortune to a college to let me do as I please because no college would refuse access to my father’s money. Then I come home with a degree that means absolutely nothing, to do absolutely nothing. It seems like a lot of money and trouble . . . for absolutely nothing.”
“Don’t you like school?”
“To be perfectly honest—as I always am with you, Miss Davenport—no.”
“Perhaps you just haven’t been to the right school.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well . . . I really must return inside. Claire and Evie won’t expect me at the park, anyway, and they have the carriage. Nelson has the other. I don’t want to drive the pony cart. So I’ll wait for them inside.”
“I’d be happy to take you.”
She shook her head. Wouldn’t that be just fine to spur another prank from Evie!
“All right, I’ll let you go back inside,” he said, but first he stepped closer. In a swift movement he took off one perfectly fitted glove and captured her hand in his. Holding her palm, he let his thumb caress the top of her hand.
“I knew your skin would be soft,” he whispered.
Before she could protest—surely she should have—he turned away, covering his ungloved hand by switching his hat from the other. Then he disappeared into his house, leaving Meg to do the same.
Kate arrived for dinner, as expected, and she thoroughly charmed all of the Pembertons, including Nelson when Kate mentioned a series of books she was reading by George Müller, whom Nelson had evidently long admired.
She managed only a few moments alone with Meg, long enough to assure Meg that Ian was recuperating nicely and had decided to take up residence closer to the Pemberton home, provided he could find a hotel willing to take a dog the size of Roscoe. The admission came with both sadness and censure, since it was obvious that Ian and Meg were now working together.
Something from which Meg would not be deterred, not even when the following Sunday’s sermon about a prodigal directly contrasted Meg’s determination to help Ian steal from the Pembertons. When the pastor went on about how the bitter brother’s protest highlighted the father’s grace—not justice as the brother might have demanded—Meg felt like she was a child again, squirming in her seat.
You made me the way I am. You gave me the earthly father whose blood I share. What else do You expect of me?
No answer came, and eventually the torturous sermon ended.
That same afternoon heralded rain, but a visit from Mrs. Mason prevented them from going to the park anyway. Sunday was the only day of the week the park drew many and various crowds, when working-class New Yorkers had the day off to enjoy it. Evidently that was an occurrence Mrs. Mason thought they needed to avoid.
On Monday, when they were about to set out despite the continued presence of rain clouds, a thick envelope arrived from Europe and even Nelson stayed home to hear news from their parents. They invited Meg to the library to listen as well.
The multiple-paged letter was filled with their mother’s descriptions of Paris—the weather, the people, the food, including recipes for the Pemberton cook to accustom herself with in advance of their return. Mrs. Pemberton had ordered gowns made for herself and her daughters, as well as suits for both Mr. Pemberton and Nelson and included full-color drawings of each from the designers. She promised to bring home new ideas for gala parties sure to please everyone on Fifth Avenue.
“I think Mother will be hosting more parties than ever this fall,” Claire said sadly, “to make up for a lost summer season.”
Nelson leaned against one of the bookshelves. “We knew our freedom wouldn’t last. Mother said as much when she gave us permission to skip Newport this summer. It was on the condition that we won’t complain when she sends us into battle in the fall.”
“I don’t know why you want to escape all the parties anyway,” Evie said. “I can hardly wait!”
“Tell me that again when you’re wearing a corset,” Claire murmured.
“That doesn’t explain why Nelson doesn’t like the parties. I don’t know which of you is more dull.”
“You won’t think us dull when we tell you about our plans to host the first annual Blue Moon Picnic,” Nelson said with a wink.
That stirred Meg’s interest. The Pembertons were hosting a picnic?
Claire smiled. “Oh, Nelson, you haven’t forgotten!”
“What are you two talking about?” Evie demanded. “What is a Blue Moon Picnic?”
“I’d like to know that myself,” Meg said.
“It’s something Claire and I jested about after taking Mother and Father to the ship. We pledged to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a party only for the household—the servants, the entire staff. And that we would host it in Central Park, where everyone can see it.”
“You don’t plan to attend it yourself, do you?” Meg asked, ready to recite a direct quote from one of Madame’s handbooks about keeping servants happy but not fraternizing with them. Although, couldn’t such a party be a delightful way of breaking rules?
“That’s the entire point,” Nelson said, “for all of us to have a party together. Eat together. Dance together.”
Meg laughed. “Dance! Oh, that ought to go over well with your neighbors. They’ll send out the army to bring your parents home immediately.”
“When are we having this party?” Evie asked.
“We haven’t decided yet.” Claire was looking again at the pages in her hands, and she spoke without looking at her sister.
“I think we should do it soon,” Evie said, but then her gaze followed Claire’s to the letter. “Is that all Mother says?”
“Isn’t an eleven-page letter and five drawings enough?” Nelson asked.
“I meant is there anything about when they’re coming home?”
C
laire read the rest of the last page, which offered fond endearments and promises of many gifts, but no specific date for their return.
“And nothing from Father?” Nelson said, obviously surprised.
Claire turned over the last page. “Oh—yes, here it is. He’s wondering about the project you began for the immigrants, Nelson, and hopes the soup pavilion is going well. And a verse. Oh, how funny! It’s the same passage Pastor read yesterday, about the prodigal.”
Nelson reached for the page with one hand but tousled Evie’s hair with the other. “He must miss you, Evie.”
She tried pushing his hand away but missed, smiling in spite of his teasing.
“I’ll start a letter to them,” he said, “although I guarantee it won’t be half as long even if all three of us write something. I don’t know how it will find them with all the places they intend going.”
“We’ll send it to their hotel in Paris,” Claire suggested. “It’ll be waiting for them when they return to pick up all the fashion Mother ordered.”
“Very good.” Nelson walked toward the door leading to Mr. Pemberton’s office. “We’ll put it on Father’s stationery.”
At the office door he paused, reaching up to a brass bookend shaped like a woman’s high-heeled boot. From under the heel he withdrew a key.
Meg watched with a bursting pulse and unexpected glee, pushing away a silent accusation of treachery so opposite the trust with which he revealed such a secret. All the while she wondered why she’d never thought of looking in so simple a spot for so simple a solution.
She spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book while the siblings composed a letter of respectable length. Occasionally she glanced out the single window, imagining their trip to the park tomorrow. Central Park was the only spot to “casually” see Ian again. By now he was likely healed of the most obvious of his injuries. Knowing how to access that office, she could do exactly as she hoped. Perhaps by the time she saw Ian, she would have something important to share with him.
God speed the time until then!
But she wasn’t sure God would listen to her.
Meg lay in bed, her eyes fixed on the bronze clock that she’d moved from the mantel to the small table beside her bed. She missed her clock and windup key from school. It had offered an alarm, and if placed under her pillow, the noise would have been enough to wake her but muffled so as not to alert anyone outside her room.
Not that she believed she would sleep. How could she rest knowing tonight she would follow through with her plan?
Although soggy ground had kept them from the park another couple of days, Meg hadn’t despaired. For the last two nights she’d opened her bedchamber door and listened as long as she could force herself to remain awake. Sounds from other bedrooms taught her some of the sleeping habits of those who shared this considerable roof. Claire was the first to sleep, the light from under her door extinguished by eleven. Evie sometimes fell asleep with the gaslight in her room still up, but any noise from her room quieted around midnight. Nelson was the most unpredictable and hardest to decipher, since his room was farthest from Meg’s. She had to venture to the hallway to see when the light from under his door went out, usually not long after midnight.
There was a third story to the mansion, where servants slept. Those noises quieted the earliest, and she had little to worry about with them so far from downstairs. Only Mr. Deekes, the head butler, whose quarters were near the kitchen, presented much concern. The main stairs were directly over his room, but in daylight hours she’d calculated the stair and floor squeaks and learned that staying close to the walls allowed both stairs and foyer floor to accept her slight weight without protest.
Meg had determined that waiting until two thirty in the morning would provide the least chance of being caught. The scullery maid roused at four to stir fires for heating water, followed soon after by the kitchen maid with preliminary preparations for the cook’s entry some time later.
No one must see Meg wander the halls at night, although she’d prepared herself for the eventuality. If caught in the library, she would say, “I had such trouble sleeping, I needed a new book to pass the hours.” Or if caught downstairs in Mr. Pemberton’s study, where she intended spending most of her unusually timed visit, “I was feeling like praying and knew the painting would help me feel closer to God. I’m happy to say I noticed where the key was kept and let myself in.”
She must remember to be bold in her lie; she had yet to become as accomplished as Kate, but determination would make up for her lack of experience.
Although she barely slept, she was startled into wakefulness by fretting over the time. She’d left her curtains open tonight, glad to have the return of the moon whose light confirmed it to be the perfect night for her nocturnal investigation.
It was two fifteen. Close enough.
Throwing back the light cover, Meg stood. She donned her robe, made of a dark-burgundy silk that was impossible to see in the darkness. Putting her feet into slippers, she went to the bedroom door and opened it carefully. She waited for any sounds to warn her.
As expected, the night was quiet but for the occasional creak she’d come to expect. Evidently a contented household left little reason for sleepless nights. She heard not even the flutter of a wing from the aviary.
Cautiously, she made her way down the hall. Past Claire’s room, past Evie’s. The stairway was nearer Nelson’s room, but that, too, was dark and silent.
Creeping close to the wall as she’d learned to do when no one was watching, Meg found her way to the first floor. Her embroidered, quilted slippers made not a sound on the marble floor of the foyer, nor upon the carpeting that led into the library. The door was ajar, and enough moonlight filtered into the room that she didn’t have to light a candle to find her way amid the chairs, sofa, and tables.
Standing at the shelves, she reached up to the third bookshelf, finding exactly what she sought. The key.
Heart pounding, nearly breathless from exhilaration, Meg stilled her trembling hand to fit the object into the lock. It opened easily, with the barest sound of a metal lever sliding from its place. She returned the key, then pushed open the door, moving it slowly, ever so slowly, because in the day-lit hour when she’d seen this door used she hadn’t thought to pay attention to any possible squeak.
Silence.
Surely this was the easiest way to investigate, knowing the entire family and staff were in the secure arms of slumber.
Stepping into the office, she first thought about where not to look. In fact, when she’d envisioned this exploration, she forewarned herself to keep her eyes only on the suspicious corner. But the windows that during the day shed beams of sunlight now opened the way for the glow of the moon. It shone a shaft of light that led nowhere but to the portrait.
Her feet would not move as quickly as she bade them. Nor would her eyes obey her; they sought the vision of Christ as if pulled there by a force not her own. Her heart stuttered.
But she pressed on. The desk was neat, offering only a stack of stationery, blotter and ink, pens and tips. Opening the middle drawer, she searched first for the seal Brewster had mentioned, then for anything that might identify a bank used by the Pembertons. It didn’t take long to find a book of checks, which she eagerly opened and read. The Bank of New York!
Slipping the record book back where she found it, she looked around the room again and settled her gaze on the corner Evie had glanced toward when mentioning the family’s blessings. It was easy enough to imagine Nelson emerging from there, when he’d appeared so unexpectedly while Meg’s attention had been arrested by the portrait.
The wall looked ordinary. Another picture hung there, this one far smaller, one she’d barely noticed before. Just a simple country scene, a landscape. Obviously it would not stand in the way if there were a secret behind this wall.
She ran her palms along the suspicious wall, going in a pattern so as not to miss a single spot, starting as high as she
could reach. Nothing seemed unusual on the smooth, stained paneling—no levers or even so much as an indentation. Getting down on her hands and knees, she felt along the baseboard and floor, looking for a release button or a break in the woodwork.
The wood did reveal a slanted cut . . . but was it only because the woodworker did not have a length to measure the exact width of the room? Or was it the spot where a door opened?
She felt along the wall again from that spot, but it revealed nothing more than what might simply be another panel joint covering the walls.
Yet she was sure this room was more than it presented itself to be. Where had Nelson appeared from that day? Had Meg been so engrossed in the portrait that she hadn’t heard him approach in the normal way, down the hall?
She thought back to that moment. She’d been staring at the painting, but she’d been too close to the door not to notice someone entering from that angle. Surely he hadn’t come through the library; she would have seen that out of the side of her vision. There must be a hidden spot in this office.
Sudden noise made her heart leap to her throat. She scampered away from the spot of her investigation, knowing the safest room in which to be found would be the library.
Just as quickly as the noise appeared, it silenced. It had been nothing more than a carriage traveling on the street outside.
Breathing in a deep gulp of fortifying air, Meg set about her task once again. She couldn’t recommend Ian risk breaking into the Pemberton home if the prize he sought wasn’t here.
She faced the wall again, looking up and down and around. That same light she’d resented a moment ago for calling attention to the portrait now aided her in the study of the questionable corner.
Surely there was a secret here; she had only to find it.
26
If a young lady is to be introduced to someone of the male persuasion, it is of utmost importance to ensure that the gentleman be not only of impeccable character and unsullied reputation, but unimpeachable integrity.