Page 101 of The English Wife

“Court is returning to session.” The bailiff was prowling the hall, rousting out stragglers. “Court is returning to session.”

Janie gathered her worsted skirts. “I should go.”

“You should,” agreed Burke. Janie turned to go, but his voice followed her, hoarse, painful. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Janie hesitated. Then she said, decisively, “Don’t recuse yourself.”

Burke blinked at her. “What?”

She might not trust his emotions, but she believed him when he said that his work mattered to him. And this is what they had set out to do, wasn’t it?

“Find the truth,” said Janie. “And publish it.”

A pirate’s grin spread across Burke’s face. “For you, Miss Van Duyvil? With pleasure.”

“Not for me,” said Janie. “For Bay.”

She turned and walked back to the courtroom, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice how long she had been gone.

TWENTY

Cold Spring, 1898

November

“Mother Van Duyvil. What an unexpected pleasure.”

The rain fell outside the parlor window in a grim drip. Ordinarily, Georgie loved the parlor at Duyvil’s Kill, with its pier glasses topped by eagles, the simple white of the woodwork, the peaceful gray of the walls, but today it felt grim and dark, and, with Mrs. Van Duyvil in it, far too small.

It was the first time Mrs. Van Duyvil had graced them with her presence in Cold Spring, and it wasn’t to visit her grandchildren.

Without preamble, she seated herself in a chair covered with needlepoint worked by a long-ago Van Duyvil. “You have that architect living with you.”

“I’ll call for tea, shall I?” said Georgie. “Did you want to see Mr. Pruyn about a commission? Bay has been wondering when you intend to move uptown.”

“I don’t,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil shortly. She waited, with ill grace, while Georgie gave instructions to Mrs. Gerritt’s niece for tea and biscuits to be brought. As soon as the door had closed behind the maid, she said, “People are talking.”

“They do tend to do that. Particularly on wet days.” Georgie seated herself across from Mrs. Van Duyvil, her simple wool skirt and white shirtwaist in marked contrast to Mrs. Van Duyvil’s plum grosgrain. Some beauties faded when they reached middle age; others hardened. Mrs. Van Duyvil was the latter type, the good looks of her youth ossified into a sort of armor.

Upstairs, there was a crash and a wail. Mrs. Gerritt had assured Georgie that all three-and-a-half-year-olds had the devil in them, but sometimes it seemed like the devil had decided to make their home his own special project, particularly on wet days when the twins couldn’t get outside.

Bay’s mother would have to call on a wet day.

Mrs. Van Duyvil looked at Georgie. Georgie looked at Mrs. Van Duyvil. They regarded each other with mutual dissatisfaction.

“If you’ve come to see Bay, I’m afraid you’ve missed him. It’s his day to go into town.”

“I know,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil with a magisterial dignity that turned it from a simple statement of fact into a divine pronouncement. Omniscience apparently went along with the pedigree.

Georgie made a mental note to contract the grippe right around Christmas.

The silence lengthened. The rain continued to plop against the sill, the fire to pop and crackle in the grate.

“Would you like to see the children?” Georgie offered.

“You can have them brought down if you like,” said Mrs. Van Duyvil, as one prepared to humor the feeble. “Later.”

“Bast is the very image of Bay,” Georgie offered, wondering how long it could possibly take to make a pot of tea and, following that, how long to drink it.