Her hand fell from the doorframe. “Are you packing?”
“Many of the servants have already deserted us, and those that remain have no interest in seeing to an extra task, so I am doing what I must,” he answered in a monotone.
“No…” Nora shifted forward, though she could not venture deeper into the room for there was nowhere to step. “Are you leaving us?”
“Leaving the family. Leaving the city. Leaving the country,” said Lionel without looking at her.
The simplicity of the answer struck strangely after all the shouting that had come before it, and she gaped at the evidence of that decision scattered around her.
“You are?”
“Yes.” He shut one drawer with a sharp push and crossed toward another. “I spoke with Camilla’s parents, and they have contacts in America that can help me find work there, somewhere far enough from the Eden name that my children might have a chance at a life free from this disaster.”
“America?” Nora whispered. “Lionel, you cannot mean—”
“I mean exactly that.” His hands paused against the edge of the open drawer, but his shoulders remained rigid. “There is nothing for us here now. No position. No prospects. Do you think there is anyone in this country that will even considergiving me employment? The moment they hear my name, every door will slam shut.”
The words opened something beneath Nora’s feet. She stared at the hard line of Lionel’s shoulders and the ruthless efficiency with which he placed one article after another into the case, and felt the fragments of her family slipping from her grasp. Papa had been taken. Mama had retreated into grief. Gretchen could scarcely look at her. And now Lionel was taking himself and his children to live across the sea.
“You are abandoning us,” she breathed.
Lionel stopped with a folded waistcoat in his hand. For a moment, he did not turn, but when he did, his expression was so devoid of feeling and sentiment that Nora wished he’d remained facing away.
“I am saving what I can,” he said, tossing the waistcoat in the case with the rest. “Camilla and the children are my family, Nora. Whatever else is left of this one will tear itself apart at the seams, and every gossip in London is sitting with knife and fork at the ready to feast on what spills out. If you possess any sense at all, you will stop moping and begin thinking about what is best for yourself.”
Nora’s throat worked uselessly as he crossed to her, forcing her to retreat to the corridor before he shut the door. Lionel’s words settled in the air like smoke, and something far more painful than Gretchen’s slap spread through her.
And the house was so terribly silent.
Nora’s hand drifted to her pocket without thought, her fingers closing around the small bit of paper tucked there. She drew the card out carefully, staring first at the printed name on one side before turning it over to the message written upon the back in Mr. Hatcher’s precise hand.
“I am proud of you.”
Those five small words blurred, and Nora pressed the card against her chest, bending around it as though it were the only solid thing left in the world. Closing her eyes, she braced herself as the ache deepened, and all but the smallest part of her yearned to go to Mr. Hatcher. To be held by the one person who looked at her actions and saw courage rather than betrayal. To not be alone as the remnants of her family cut her from their hearts.
But that tiny, reasonable part of her knew that today was but the beginning of the pain to come, and Nora would not ruin Mr. Hatcher simply because she was too weak to stand on her own.
Chapter 42
The London Morning Chronicle
Saturday, 24 June 1882
EDEN & CO. CLOSES ITS DOORS
Yesterday, Eden & Co. was a tumult as clients, alarmed by recent allegations concerning Mr. Virgil Eden’s affairs, crowded the premises in an effort to withdraw the funds entrusted to the firm. Within two hours, payments were being refused outright, and shortly thereafter, the front doors were closed and locked against clients and visitors alike.
The collapse has produced no small sensation among those families who have long regarded Mr. Eden’s establishment as the safest in England. If the allegations now circulating prove true, Eden & Co. has not merely failed under pressure, but its grand promises of wealth were little better than a quack’s cure-all: handsomely labeled, confidently sold, and worthless when most needed…
Chapter 43
The Evening Standard
Friday, 7 July 1882
LORD LOMBARD HEADED TO TRIAL
…Mr. Virgil Eden, the private banker whose affairs have occupied so much public attention, appeared yesterday before the magistrate upon charges arising from the collapse of Eden & Co. and the alleged falsification of investments entrusted to his care. After hearing evidence concerning the firm’s accounts, the disputed statements issued to clients, and the absence of securities said to have been purchased on their behalf, the magistrate found the evidence sufficient to commit Mr. Eden for trial.
