Page 53 of The English Wife

“Mama said she would teach me.” It took Janie a moment to realize that Viola was talking about archery.

The child’s dark eyes were focused on her mother’s photograph with such naked grief that Janie felt ashamed of herself for the pettiness of her thoughts.

“I can teach you if you like,” said Janie, painfully aware that she was committing herself to a promise she might not be able to keep. Well, she would keep it, if she was able. Some arrangements would have to be made for the twins. They couldn’t stay here alone indefinitely. She offered the photograph to Viola. “Would you like this?”

Viola snatched it up, saying, belatedly, “Thank you, Aunt Janie.”

“You’re welcome.” Whatever else had been in the hearth was unrecognizable. Janie wondered if the photo had been about to meet the same fate, saved only by a chance draft. But why burn pictures? Pictures and—she poked gingerly with one finger—letters? Newspaper?

“You’ll get your fingers dirty,” said Viola importantly, sliding off the bed. “Nurse says we’re never to play in the ashes.”

“Nurse is right.” Janie wiped her finger on her handkerchief. The window of the room commanded a fine view of the new house, in all its Gothic glory. Someone had been here, and recently she would guess. Someone had burned pictures and letters in the hearth. Someone had lain on the bed. “Viola, has anyone used this house since you left?”

“Can I take Polly back with me?” Viola was clutching the duck’s string in a grimy hand, and Janie was forcibly reminded that she wasn’t quite four years old. It was easy to forget that at times.

“Perhaps Polly had better stay here?” Janie found herself reluctant to let anyone know they had been in the old house. Not, she told herself, because she hadn’t the right to take Viola anywhere on the property—hadn’t this once been her home, too?—but because, if someone had been using this room, it might be best not to draw attention to it.

Viola was looking mulish, but before she had the chance to say anything, Janie heard the sound of a door opening downstairs, the creak of a floorboard, and then another.

Someone was in the house.

Newport, 1894

July

“Hullo, Potter. Busy day?”

“Yes, Mr. Van Duyvil.” A liveried gatekeeper hurried to open the gates of the beach club. “If I may say, it’s good to see you, Mr. Van Duyvil.”

“He forgot to tug his forelock,” murmured Georgie as they drove through.

“Forelock tugging is purely for you decadent Old World sorts. Hasn’t anyone told you we’re a democracy?” Bay jumped down from the carriage and held up a hand to help Georgie descend. The coachman was also in livery, in a caped coat and high hat that were absurd in the July heat. “Come back for us in two hours? Good man.”

“Yessir.”

Georgie caught only a glimpse of a red, sweating face in between the coachman’s gold braid and the low brim of his beaver hat. Mrs. Van Duyvil kept a full complement of servants all attired in the Van Duyvil colors, orange and red with the gold emblem of a rising sun. Georgie had thought she’d stumbled into a fancy dress party until Bay had explained it was merely the staff, assembled to meet her.

When Bay had told her they would spend the next month in his mother’s cottage by the sea, Georgie had imagined something with a thatched roof and roses blooming below the windows. Instead, she had found herself in a mansion that made Blenheim look like an architect’s afterthought, with thirty bedrooms and gilded taps on the bath.

“Mother didn’t build it,” he’d said by way of apology. “She bought it from my aunt’s husband—Anne’s father—when he went bankrupt. It wasn’t what she would have chosen. We had a much simpler house before.”

“Hmm,” said Georgie. As an act of philanthropy, buying an Italianate palace and filling it with liveried retainers seemed somewhat lacking in moral suasion. Her mother-in-law did not appear unduly pained by the necessity of playing queen of the castle.

Georgie suspected that she owed the fact that she hadn’t been roundly snubbed to the fact that the appearance of Bayard Van Duyvil’s English bride had directed attention away from Janie’s not-quite-engagement that now wasn’t and Anne’s engagement that was.

As for Anne, well, she was a problem for another day. For now, Georgie was to have a day at the beach with her husband, frolicking in the sand at Newport’s most fashionable club.

Bay indicated the beach with a flourish. “Welcome to the most exclusive patch of sand on the eastern seaboard.”

“You are joking,” said Georgie. The clubhouse was shabby, the beach narrow and choppy with seaweed and shale. She looked back over her shoulder. “Wasn’t there a much prettier patch of coast that we saw from the walk? I think people were bathing there.”

“Yes, but they were”—Bay lowered his voice for dramatic effect—“ordinary people. The water may be muddy here, but only members can enter.”

Georgie shook her head at him. “So much for your democracy. Anyone can walk in Hyde Park.”

“Yes, but can anyone curtsy in the queen’s drawing room?”

Georgie wrinkled her nose at her husband. “It’s hardly the same thing.”