“We have a cow,” Caroline called to me.
“And we shall have every sort of animal. Horses. A little Pekingese dog? Even a pig if you like.”
It had been six years since we’d first seen The Hay. It had come a long way.
We stepped inside to the dining room, the table set with our best purple transferware and fresh flowers, and walked to the kitchen, following the scent of new maple wood. I’d had the hole in the subfloor repaired and a handsome black-and-white-checkered tile floor laid atop it and the cabinets painted deep robin’s egg blue.
Peg met me in the kitchen and offered me a glass. “Wine, Miz Ferriday? Dinner will be done soon.”
I smoothed one hand down Caroline’s jacket sleeve. “How your father would have loved this.”
“Especially the wine,” Caroline said with a smile.
I realized with a jolt it was the first time in so long the thought of Henry was no dagger to the chest.
Mr. Gardener found us in the kitchen. “You won’t believe this,” he said with a worried look.
We followed him to the library. How beautifully Peg had outfitted that room, with the red-and-navy Tabriz rug I’d sent up from the city and a desk outfitted with all the best papers and pens. We stepped to the multi-paned bay window along the back of the room, which overlooked the sloping backyard.
Caroline hurried to the window and gasped.
Just outside the window, where our majestic maple tree once stood, sat a jagged, blackened stump.
“My goodness,” I said.
Beyond the stump lay the fallen tree, parallel to the house.
“Last night, lightning sheared it clear off,” Mr. Gardener said.
I turned to him, fists resting on my hips. “Well, that can mean only one thing.”
“Take me two days to get this cleaned up.”
“Means God wants us to have a garden, and we must start right away.”
“Do you mean it, Mother?” Caroline hurried outside.
Mr. Gardener smiled. “I prayed for this.”
“We’ll have a boxwood knot garden here behind the house and terrace it down a flight of stone steps. And an herb garden there close to the house.”
Mr. Gardener took a step back. “But we have no garden design.”
“Here’s your plan.” I grabbed a notepad from the desk and sketched the same design found on the carpet at our feet, the rectilinear pattern so commonly found in rugs from the East, a strong border and a center medallion containing four triangles. “We’ll have roses planted inside the boxwoods here and a small pool in the center of it all.”
Caroline came running from outside. “There is a pony in the far barn, Mother. Just like the one Father promised.”
“The only gelding with pinto markings in all of Connecticut. Just as he wanted you to have. And now for your second gift.”
I linked arms with Caroline and we made our way up the front stairs, through my bedroom toward Caroline’s, and along the way waved toward my silver-clad icon hanging on my wall, the one Nancy had gifted me.
“Oh, Mother, you’ve hung your icon.”
How good my most treasured possession looked there.
We moved on to Caroline’s bedroom and I stood aside so she could see what lay at the end of her room. It was a newly constructed extension to the back of the house, with several feet of new flooring and tall windows, which lengthened her room so it overlooked the backyard. The floor of the new area was lighter than the old, but the added space opened up the room considerably.
Caroline stood, looking out over the backyard, fingers to her lips. “It’s perfect.”
I stepped to her side and took in the lovely view, of the entire backyard, across the apple orchard all the way to Munger Lane. “You’ll see the garden from here every morning.”
“This room is big enough for three now. Perhaps we can invite some of the Russian women up here? I can ask Bird Tavern if they can offer them positions.”
“That’s a splendid idea, Caroline.”
She slipped one arm around my waist. “They will like the garden, I think. May we plant eglantine?”
I laughed. “All the eglantine you’d like. And iris and Father’s favorite peonies.”
“And lilacs?”
“Of course.”
I held her close. “I think Father would be happy for us, don’t you?”
“So very happy,” she said.
* * *
—
THE NEXT DAY A crew of men arrived with six draft horses to drag to the town green the donated boulder they’d crowbarred out of our meadow’s earth. A bronze plaque was affixed to the boulder to remember the fallen of the Civil War and the Great War.
After the Episcopal pastor said a few words to recall the war dead, I walked across the street from the green to Merrill Brothers Store. I had readied the old place, a former home, and left it broom-clean with new shelves built in the front parlor, but left the rest to its new owner.
Merrill stepped out onto the porch. Given plenty of fresh Bethlehem air and a few Woolsey Civil War remedies like beef tea and spruce beer his hair had grown in nicely, almost all of his lesions healed and his vision improved every day. Though his doctor prescribed painful-looking physical therapy, the only lasting sign of his injuries was a slight limp, an imperfection that only made him more attractive in my eyes.
He came down the steps to meet me and we admired the handsome sign above the door that he’d commissioned, gold letters on black board. Merrill Brothers. Henry’s sign at Poor Brothers had been similar.
“You hoisted it up there by yourself, Merrill? You really shouldn’t—”
“Let me work, Eliza. It’s the best way to recover.”
“It’s a lovely sign, Merrill, but Merrill Brothers? Why Brothers?”
“It sounds better than plain Merrill, don’t you think?”
That was the type of good business decision Henry would have made.
“Would you like to sell apples at your store?” I asked. “Some are ready to pick in the orchard.”
“I hate that you’re tied to this place now, Eliza.”
I brushed a smudge of dirt off his shoulder. How nice he looked, having exchanged his bespoke suits for a grocer’s plain trousers, suspenders, and white shirt.
“I’ve got the baseball team lined up. First game next week and they’ve elected you as captain,” I said.
Merrill smiled and stepped closer to me.
I held him at arm’s length. “Just remember Caroline knows nothing of us. Mother, too. I will call you Mr. Merrill in public. How does that sound?”
We made our way up the wooden steps and stood in front of the door. “You must close your eyes, Eliza. I want this to be a surprise.”
“Oh, really, Merrill.” I squeezed my eyes closed and he led me in the door. I expected to see a crate of melons and a few bars of soap.
“It smells heavenly. Of bread and cinnamon and—”
“Good. You can look now.”
I opened my eyes to a most charming array of dry goods. Glass jars filled with candies, Henry’s favorite peppermints. On one side of the room shelves stood stocked with every tinned delicacy one needed for a party. Shelves on the other bulged with remedies and cures of all kinds. Witch hazel. Chamomile lotion. Epsom salts. Acorn squash in bushel baskets.
How different it was from Henry’s store, with their whole floor of beaver hats and overcoats in the men’s department, biscuit boxes stacked to the ceiling.
Why could I not stop comparing everything to Henry’s store? He was gone. Why could I not move on?
Merrill watched me, eager for a sign.
“Oh, it is just what I dreamed it could be, Merrill, but if you will excuse me, there is something I have to do. Something I’ve put off for much too long.”<
br />
* * *
—
AS DUSK CAME UPON The Hay I knew I had to confront the hay barn, where I’d spent some of my last happy moments with Henry, the place I avoided at all cost.
I made my way out to the barn, a glass of Dubonnet in each hand and stepped into that sweet-smelling place, hay boxes lined up against one wall. A family of barn swallows chattered up in the eaves as I stepped across the wide-planked wood floor. The scent of cedar brought Henry back in full color, standing there.
The trip he’d planned. The kiss.
Surely he could hear me, out there in our holy place?
I set one glass down on a hay box and looked to the rafters. How silly I felt out there, talking to the deceased. Where to begin?
I pulled my coat closer. “Thank you for finding this place, Henry.”
The birds quieted. Was he listening?
“You were right, of course. It will be a great comfort to Caroline. Ninety-six acres. Plenty of room to roam. I’m bringing a few of the horses up.”
I sipped the liqueur and it burned my throat in a good way. “The pony was a big hit. And there are bluebirds here now. I’ll put out some nesting boxes in the meadow.”
It was as if I were making small talk at a cocktail party, just delaying the important issue.
I toed a knot in the wood floor. “So, I want to tell you I need to do something. I’m sure you’ll understand. It may not seem too big of a thing to you, but it is to me.”
Tears pooled in my eyes and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep them at bay.
I slipped my rings off my left finger. “Do you remember when you said you wanted to go with me everywhere? I said I wanted that, too, and still do.”
I slid my rings onto my right ring finger.
“But I need to move forward, Henry. Just remember it doesn’t mean I love you less. You are with me always, no matter where I go or with whom. No one can take that away from me.”
I stood for a moment. Had he heard?
I turned and walked to the door as a barn swallow swooped down from the eaves and lighted on the edge of the glass I had set down. He dipped his beak into the golden liquid once, twice, and then flitted off back up to the loft.
Thank you, Henry.
I stepped out of the barn feeling lighter somehow.
On my way back toward the house I stopped to admire the sunset, growing pink and violet over Munger Lane.
From the driveway, Merrill walked toward me, carrying a stack of bushel baskets.
I stepped toward him across the grass, the air at my ankles chilly. “Hello, there, Mr. Merrill.”
Merrill’s smile glowed white in the growing darkness. “Hello Mrs. Ferriday. Just going to pick some apples for the store.”
I reached for one of the baskets. “Let me help.”
We picked apples as the sun went down beyond Caroline’s playhouse, as the meadow turned to gold, and watched the bats fly above the orchard, silhouetted against the pink sky.
Mr. Merrill, Henry, and me.
EPILOGUE
Luba
1921
GIN LANE
People ask me why I came to America with my sister, Sofya, and I tell them for the pistachio ice cream. They laugh at that and I don’t have to think about my parents and everything we left behind.
Life goes on.
Scrumptious little Max, who now answers to Serge, is now Cook’s apprentice and is becoming quite a good little chef, and is going to school here now, at seven he is the tallest in his class. He told his teacher they shouldn’t get too attached to him since he was going back to Russia. Sofya tells that story with a smile on her face but she feels the same way, still has not fully unpacked, expecting “that affair with the Bolsheviks” to be over any day and the Whites to be back in power. But Great Britain just recognized the Reds as the official government of Russia and, if you ask me, the whole thing just gets worse.
As Eliza says, “Heavenly day.”
It must be hard on Sofya that Max looks more like his father every day, his hair no longer blond, but a light cocoa brown. As I write this, she walks the beach looking at the ocean. Thinking of Afon?
She and Cook are doing well, like nervous fourteen-year-olds holding hands sometimes, and she wears the band he gave her. At Peg and Thomas’s wedding he looked at Sofya the whole time and she pretended not to notice.
We’re supposed to call Cook by his real name now, Yury. He’s opening what they call a dinner theater in Quogue. I think Sofya has deep affection for him, but still she has a drawer in her bedroom where she keeps Afon’s photo. She looks at it sometimes.
People say we’re assimilating well, which I think must mean our English is getting better. I work at the hospital here and with my first paycheck bought a True Story magazine, the best textbook to teach myself phrases from toothpaste ads, like What a lovely thing a swift little smile can be, and I learned how important kiss-proof lipstick is. Many Russian girls are here now and I hear talk about building a church we can all go to in Sea Cliff.
Sofya had a row with Eliza after she sold Mother’s emerald necklace. But my sister would not back down. She put the money in the Southampton Bank so I can go to New York University, which she says Mother would have wanted.
We planted Sofya’s rose here in the garden at Gin Lane, and Eliza brought a minister to say a few words about Agnessa and Father and Count von Orloff. Cook and Mrs. Ferriday made Russian food to make us feel better, but it just reminded me of the things I’d never do again. Like see the Rembrandts at the Hermitage, the house cats at my ankles. Play game night at Alexander Palace with our Romanov cousins. Watch the stars from the steppe with Father.
What would they all say if they knew I was seeing the town policeman, a boy named William Maddox, with kind eyes and very white teeth, who asked me to Corine’s for soda? He didn’t know much about astronomy but he does now. He calls me Lyra, my new name, and sometimes I forget to answer to it, which he thinks is funny. “Who doesn’t know their own name?” he says. Agnessa would’ve taken to her bed to learn I was seeing a policeman. How would my mother have felt?
Mother.
I think of them all often, on bad days with a stab of pain. When I see a pine grove and think of Afon at rest in Malinov under his favorite larch trees, back home without us. When I see a little brown dog with a wet expression. When I see Mr. Hildreth with his wire spectacles like Father’s, or catch the scent of wild rose in the air that makes me ache for Mother.
But I’ll keep my mind on my new American life, study hard my English, and not question a thing.
I swear by God’s stars.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While writing and researching Lilac Girls I came to love Caroline Ferriday’s mother, Eliza Woolsey Mitchell. The daughter of Caroline Carson Woolsey Mitchell, one of the famous Woolsey women of New York City, staunch abolitionists and philanthropists, Eliza saw what it meant to give back at an early age. She ended up devoting her time to the cause of the “White Russian” émigrés, former aristocrats in Russia who lost everything when the Bolsheviks finally seized power from the tsar in 1918. When the émigrés arrived in New York City, many of them destitute and traumatized, the men often found work but the women and children had a harder time. A fierce advocate for these women, Eliza helped organize the American Central Committee for Russian Relief, fought to find the émigrés work and homes, and opened her own New York City apartment and Southampton cottage to them.
At the end of World War I the West discovered the exotic Slavic countries of Eastern Europe and, as Russian émigrés poured into Paris, Russian art, handicrafts, and clothing were the height of fashion. Seizing on this trend, Eliza and the American Central Committee for Russian Relief commissioned Russian handicrafts from a workshop staffed by White Russians in Paris to sell at a series of bazaars to benefit the women.
<
br /> Caroline Ferriday developed her own sense of service working at these bazaars, held at the Ferridays’ Manhattan apartment at 31 East Fiftieth Street and at the Plaza Hotel, and she often tapped her fellow debutantes to work there. The young women, dressed in traditional Russian sarafans and kokoshniks, manned the sales of Russian hand goods made in Paris: rag dolls dressed in Russian folk dress, lace-trimmed bed linens, peasant blouses, and enameled boxes. These bazaars were wildly successful and the sales went on for years, a favorite subject of the group of society journalists known as Cholly Knickerbocker, and raised considerable aid for the White Russian émigrés.
Eliza contributed to many other charities as well, all while raising her daughter Caroline on her own, feeling the constant ache of losing her beloved husband, Henry. Henry was a successful dry goods merchant whose family hailed from Ferriday, Louisiana, on one side and England on the other. He spent a great deal of time in Paris as a child and young man, was a tremendous Francophile, and instilled his love of France in Caroline. Henry died from pneumonia shortly after they bought The Hay, never to spend a full season in the country home he loved.
Eliza met many Russian émigrés in the course of her work, including perfumer Prince Matchabelli and his wife Norina, and Princess Cantacuzène, President Grant’s first granddaughter, married to Prince Mikhail Cantacuzène, a Russian general and diplomat. Princess Cantacuzène became Eliza’s good friend and headed up the Russian relief committee, often helping with handicraft sales. Her book My Life Here and There provides a fascinating look into her twenty years living in Russia, from the American point of view of a woman who fiercely loved Russia.
Many of the autobiographies I read of former aristocrats from that period helped inspire and inform the character of Eliza’s Russian friend Sofya Streshnayva. Mary Tolstoy, Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia, Countess Olga Hendrikoff, and many others helped me fill in the details of Sofya’s life in Russia. But the one I drew upon most for Sofya’s personality was Countess Edith Sollohub. Completely charming and unpretentious, Edith was the daughter of a high-ranking Russian diplomat, her privileged life derailed by the Bolshevik Revolution. Her books The Russian Countess and Stories from Forest and Steppe provide an intimate sense of what Russian rural life was like at the time and give insight into a grounded, intelligent woman who made the most of her terrible circumstances.
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