Page 88 of The English Wife

Janie followed her mother through Grand Central, feeling like Polly the duck being pulled on her string, bobbing as she went. Her mother led the pack, a reluctant Mr. Tilden bearing her company. Mr. Tilden was coming to provide legal advice, much against his wishes, but really because her mother believed it unfitting not to be supported by a man, however nominal, in times of trouble.

Janie could see Mr. Tilden darting nervous glances at the newspapers as they passed. Annabelle’s name screamed out at them from every paper, in every newsboy’s hoarse cry.

WHO IS ANNABELLE VAN DUYVIL? FULL STORY ON PAGE SEVEN screamed the morning edition of The Journal, making up for lost time. Janie had no doubt that the international wires were crackling, colleagues in London being rousted out of their beds. She had an image of the murder squad on their ubiquitous bicycles cycling right off the pier, determined to plow their way across the Atlantic.

Annabelle stared out at Janie under the arms of passersby, but not Annabelle as Janie knew her, an artist’s imagination of an Annabelle who was part urchin, part Becky Sharp.

Mr. Burke’s doing? Janie hadn’t spoken to him since their confrontation two days before. The news had broken last night, in the evening edition of The World. The Journal, The Times, and The Sun scrambled to catch up in the early morning hours.

Someone tugged on Janie’s skirt. “Miss Van Duyvil?”

It was one of the newsboys, his ragged jacket inadequate for the weather, his toes showing through the cracks in his shoes.

“Yes?”

“I’m to give this to Your Hand Only.” A crumpled piece of paper traveled from his dirty hand to Janie’s.

“Janie!” It was her mother, turning with outraged majesty.

Janie hastily tucked the note in her pocket. “A paper, please,” she said in a louder voice and handed the boy a silver dollar. She echoed a phrase she had heard Anne use. “Keep the change.”

The boy grinned at her and skipped away, leaving her in possession of the morning edition of The World featuring her sister-in-law’s name blazoned in type fully three inches high. It left dark smudges on Janie’s lilac gloves.

“Janie!”

“Coming, Mother.”

Mrs. Van Duyvil’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the broadsheet. “There’s no need to encourage them by purchasing that trash.”

“Those boys need to earn their bread somehow.” Janie hadn’t expected herself to speak back. Neither had her mother. “Didn’t Great-Grandfather Bayard own a newspaper?”

“That was different.”

“Yes,” drawled Anne, who was as much a Bayard as Janie, a fact their mother liked to forget. “His didn’t sell.”

Mrs. Van Duyvil favored her daughter and her niece with an expression of equal displeasure. “Come this way and don’t dawdle.”

Anne rolled her eyes at Janie in a rare moment of good kinship, but picked up her pace all the same. One tended to do what Janie’s mother commanded.

But not Annabelle. Annabelle or Georgiana, or whomever she was. Annabelle had never leapt at her mother’s command.

Falling a little behind, Janie wiggled the piece of paper out from her pocket. It only took a quick glance to scan the contents. The ink was bold and black, the writing angular, but strangely delicate. Elegant.

They didn’t hear it from me. JB

Janie shoved the note back in her pocket, torn between a curious sort of elation and fury. Giving Mr. Tilden her hand, she allowed the lawyer to help her into the private train car her mother had borrowed from an acquaintance for the occasion. The interior was sumptuously decorated in mahogany and blue velvet, a gilt-edged pier glass reflecting Janie’s scowling face.

“Don’t purse your lips like that,” said her mother automatically.

“No, Mother.” Janie folded her hands in her lap and crossed her legs at the ankle as the train set off, the incriminating edition of The World sprawling on the table between them like an obscenity.

It had been on a train like this that she had told Mr. Burke about Mr. Lacey’s visit. On a train like this but not like this. In the obscene silence of the private car, Janie found herself yearning for the bustle of the public carriage, for the tea that slopped over the sides of the cheap train cups, served with milk past its prime and sugar in discolored lumps.

It wasn’t Mr. Burke’s name on the byline. Which didn’t mean anything, of course. But Janie didn’t believe—couldn’t believe—he would lie to her straight out. By omission, perhaps. By wiggling around the corners of truthfulness. But this was too blatant.

Tentatively, Janie put out a finger, drawing the paper a little closer. Her mother was occupied in her own thoughts, her face a tragic mask. Anne was prowling about the car, inspecting the appointments. Mr. Tilden was attempting to hide behind a large sheaf of official-looking papers, clearly wishing himself anywhere but where he was.

FULL STORY ON PAGE SEVEN. Janie flipped to the seventh page. There was a fulsome account of the consequence of the Laceys of Lacey Abbey, sketches of the abbey, a family tree dating back to the Conqueror. Mr. Giles Lacey declares definitively that the wife of Mr. Bayard Van Duyvil was not his cousin, but a ward of his late uncle, a charity child.