New York
February, 1899
For three days, the papers were crammed with reports of people frozen in their homes, ice floes in Southern waters, walls of snow in the nation’s capital. Never had there been a storm like it, pummeling the country from New Orleans to Vermont.
And on the banks of the Hudson, Illyria lay in ruins, a heap of smoldering masonry, half walls and blackened chimney, gutted window frames and sparkling shards of glass.
Firemen and police climbed over the remains, but there was little they could do. Soot crept beneath the windowsills of the old house, tarring the woodwork, giving Janie a constant cough. The reek of smoke permeated everything.
As soon as they were able, Janie and Anne packed up the twins and fled back to the house on Thirty-Sixth Street. Word of Alva Van Duyvil’s death had preceded them. A pile of black-bordered notes of condolence had been delivered by footmen sloshing their way through the slush in the streets, climbing over the mounds of snow that had frozen hard at the street corner, black with coal smoke.
Only a handful of reporters ventured through the slush to wait at the gate. A death by fire, while a gratifyingly tragic capstone to a major story, was hardly front-page news compared to cattle freezing in the fields in Virginia.
The Doom of the Van Duyvils? mused The Journal, concocting an arresting but entirely fictitious tale of dubious seventeenth-century land deals and Indian curses, but their ruminations were limited to the lower half of an inside page.
Janie and Anne rolled up their sleeves and set about making arrangements for Mrs. Van Duyvil’s funeral. Anne was, much to Janie’s surprise, a pillar of strength in crisis. A slightly cracked and crooked pillar, but a pillar all the same, fierce in public and blunt in private.
In its own way, that was the most helpful of all, not having to pretend with Anne. It was exhausting enough dealing with the emotions she did feel without having to pretend to the ones she didn’t. Anne bullied the rector and the undertaker, poured sherry into Mr. Tilden until he disbursed the necessary funds, and wrote response after response to the notes of condolence that piled higher every day, as every socialite and social climber, every sixteenth cousin fifteen times removed, paid their respects to the late, great Alva Van Duyvil.
“She was mad.” That was Anne’s verdict, delivered in private, in those dark hours of the evening when the children were in bed and Janie and Anne sat together in the grim drawing room that had been her mother’s domain. “Is that the time? You can sit up if you like. I’m going to bed.”
But was she mad? There was something comforting about Anne’s blunt summation, as if the madness were something separate from her mother, something that had taken over her hand and directed her knife. But Janie wasn’t so sure.
It didn’t matter. It was over now. Janie tried to get her head around it all and found she couldn’t quite. The coroner’s court had met and declared a verdict of unnatural death by person or persons unknown. The press, with other, fresher stories to chase, dropped away. Giles Lacey booked passage to England. And Burke …
Do what you have to do, Janie had told him, and he did.
On the Wednesday following the storm, Burke’s article appeared in bold black letters on the front page of The News of the World, and the world turned upside down.
Curiosity seekers shimmied up lampposts to try to peer through windows. Second cousins suddenly contracted mysterious illnesses that rendered them unfit to perform their duties as pallbearers.
“Did she do it, Miss Van Duyvil? Did you see it?”
They ran a gauntlet from the church, the police pushing back the crowds, making way for the mourners, such as they were. The pews at Trinity Church were all but empty. A few elderly relatives, who either didn’t know or didn’t care, came to pay their respects, but her mother’s court was missing. Mrs. Astor discovered another obligation, and the rest of the world followed.
“There is some justice in the world.” Anne pushed back her veil and leaned back against the black velvet squabs as black-plumed horses carried them away from Trinity Church towards Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. There might be no body to bury, but the formalities were being observed all the same. “Aunt Alva must have been furious to see her funeral so ill-attended. Even those upstart Vanderbilts stayed away.”
Janie bit her lip to hide a smile. It wasn’t funny, not really. But she admired Anne’s nerve. “I wish—” she began, and stopped. Anne, while a rock when it came to dealing with grieving children, had balked all attempts to discuss what had happened at Illyria. “I wish I knew what she was thinking.”
Her cousin looked out the window, her face sober. “I used to admire her, you know. I thought if I married Teddy, I could be what she was. Only more beautiful and brilliant, of course.” Anne looked back at her, and Janie was surprised to see a hesitancy there. “Did you mind about Teddy?”
“I minded Mother minding,” said Janie honestly. “But other than that … no.”
“I rather liked Teddy once.” The wistful note in Anne’s voice made Janie look at her in surprise. Anne shrugged, tossing her head so that her jet earrings danced. “Or might have, if he had given me the chance. He only married me because his mother didn’t want him to.”
“You had that in common, then,” said Janie drily.
Anne snorted in appreciation. “Aunt Alva would have loved to see me end my days in dreary spinsterdom, dressed in sackcloth and winding wool. It gave me such joy to disappoint her.” She glanced sideways at Janie. “She never did forgive my father for proposing to my mother instead of her.”
“But I’d thought—”
“That my father was a horrible parvenu with more money than taste?” Janie winced at Anne’s accurate imitation of Mrs. Van Duyvil. “He was. He was also madly attractive. Charisma, I think they call it. Your mother wanted him. My mother got him. You didn’t know?”
Janie shook her head. “No.” Such an inadequate word. “My mother never spoke well of your father.”
“She wouldn’t, would she?” Anne leaned back against the squabs. “She must have hated herself for wanting him. And him for not having her. And both of them for being happy without her.”
“You’ve thought about this a great deal,” said Janie cautiously.
Anne smiled her three-cornered smile. “I’ve had years to. It was misery living under her roof. If it hadn’t been for Bay—” She broke off, her lips tightening. Speaking rapidly, she said, “It does make you wonder about love and hate, doesn’t it? There are times when I hate Teddy so much that I wonder if I might love him. Strange, isn’t it? Maybe I’m more like Aunt Alva than I’d thought.”
“No.” The carriage rattled past a marble monument featuring a weeping angel. “My mother—she never questioned her own motives. What she did was right, whatever it was, and what everyone else did was wrong.”
Even when it came to murder.
“Do you know,” said Anne as she held out her hand for the coachman to help her out of the carriage, “you are not nearly as tedious as you used to be.”
Which, Janie knew, was as close to a declaration of affection from Anne as she was likely to get.
They stood together, alone in the wind, as the rector gabbled the final words over Mrs. Van Duyvil, eager to be back by his own hearth. The reporters hadn’t chased them to the cemetery: even they recognized that interments were private affairs, for the family alone. Or what was left of it.
Anne’s gloved hand groped for Janie’s. Janie held her cousin’s hand, the hills undulating around them, more like a picture in a sampler than a graveyard, but for the marble monuments that dotted the landscape, angels and weeping cupids and cenotaphs and gravestones. After the babble outside the church, Green-Wood felt echoingly silent. The silvery winter sunlight gave it a horrible beauty, a cold and empty beauty.
Which was, Janie thought, not a bad metaphor for her mother. Alva Van Duyvil had lived her life for show, but there had been nothing at the heart of it. She had been as empty as her coffin, a monument without substance.
Or maybe that was unfair. Maybe it was simply that it was easier to think of her mother as cold and empty than consumed with dark passions, love turned to hate, pride turned to snobbery.
“It’s a relief to see her in the ground, isn’t it?” murmured Anne. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. You were thinking it.”
“Not in so many words.”
“In other words,” said Anne, “yes. Oh, and amen.”
The rector closed his Book of Common Prayer with evident relief. “I am aware these are, er, difficult times,” he said, which Janie thought was a nice balance between dealing with a possible murderess and acknowledging the amounts of money said murderess had donated to the church over the years. “If there should be any way I might be of spiritual assistance…”
Janie shook her head.
Anne’s eyes narrowed on something past the victor. Her face transformed into a look of extreme earnestness. “How very kind of you,” she said, swaying forward, and taking the surprised rector’s arm before he could do anything about it. “Do you know, Father Chillingworth, my soul is riven—utterly riven—by these tragic events.”
Beyond the vicar, half-hidden by an angel with breasts like bowls of custard, a man stood watching them, his dark coat blending like a shadow against the gray stone.
“Er, yes. If you would like to make an appointment—”
Anne bore the vicar inexorably away in the direction of his waiting conveyance. “Wouldn’t it be simpler if I were just to share your carriage back to the city? I know Janie wanted to meditate over her mother’s grave, didn’t you, Janie? So she won’t mind in the slightest if we leave her to follow, would you, Janie?”
“This is very irregular,” the rector protested.
“Precisely why I need to speak to you,” said Anne firmly. “It doesn’t do to ignore one’s soul. Look at the dreadful things that might happen as a consequence.” She smiled her cat’s smile at Janie. “We’ll just leave you to look in your own heart, shall we, darling? Now, Father Chillingworth, if you would be so good…”
“That was a very neat kidnapping,” said Burke, stepping out from behind the weeping angel.
“Well, Anne has had some practice at elopements,” said Janie, speaking at random.
Burke winced. “I had hoped I had lived that down.”
“You did. You have.” Memories surged between them. The orange-lit drawing room, Burke’s arms around her. I love you. A product of circumstance and momentary madness? Or something more. “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”
“There were enough gawkers at the gates.” Burke stayed where he was, a good yard away. “How are you?”
The frost seeped through her thin shoes, better suited to the church than the graveyard. Janie managed an uneven smile. “Cold. This winter—it feels as though it will never be warm again.”
Burke looked at her carefully. “Are we really talking about the weather?”
Janie bit her lip. “Possibly.”
“It’s starting to thaw, they say.” Burke started to step forward and then stopped, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Should I have kept quiet? Ever since the story came out … I’ve wished it hadn’t. I feel like I’ve thrown you in it.”
“I was already in it. And I asked you to write that story. To tell the truth.”
“If I hadn’t—” Burke gestured awkwardly at the empty spaces around them. “You might at least have had others with you today.”
“Do you mean toadeaters and distant cousins who had to be bullied into dancing with me? I would as soon do without their consolation. Do you think you’ve wronged me?” Burke’s involuntary wince gave her all the answer she needed. Janie could feel her spine straightening, the fog falling away around her. “You didn’t. You did just what I asked you to do.”
“At a horrible and confusing time,” Burke prevaricated.
“Are you saying I don’t know my own mind?”
“Er—” Burke looked around for aid. The marble angel provided none. “You tell me.”
“I think I already have,” said Janie tartly, and found herself, despite herself, grinning back at Burke as they both stared at each other like utter idiots. Feeling suddenly awkward, Janie cleared her throat. “I appreciated your headline yesterday. ANNABELLE EXONERATED. It made the point very nicely.”
“It was that or send flowers.” In a more serious tone, Burke said, “I thought it might be something to show the children someday. If people talk.”
“People always talk,” said Janie frankly. And then, “Anne is taking the children to France until the scandal blows over. She says she’ll suffer Paris for their sake, even if it takes a decade or so. It might be a rather long trip. Viola is already negotiating for a new Paris doll with a complete wardrobe. And a donkey. Someone told her there were donkeys in the Tuileries Garden, and she wants one for her own.”
Burke went very still. “Will you be going with them?”
Janie looked down at the frost-blasted grass. “I would like to see Paris. But not now.”
“Why?” Burke’s breath whistled in the wind. “Why not now?”
Janie stared at him, at a loss for words.
I love you.
Having declared so firmly that she knew her own mind, it was rather lowering to find that she didn’t. Or, rather, that knowing it, she didn’t have the strength to say it.
“This is my home. If I leave, I want to leave on my own terms, not as an exile.” Burke quirked a brow. Janie rushed on, “In Paris, I would be only another American abroad. Here—here I have the chance to do something, something that matters. I know you think my work at the Girls’ Club is silly—”
“I never said that!” Burke grimaced. “Or if I did, it was … well, let’s just say my motives weren’t pure. And I was wrong.”
“Thank you,” said Janie with dignity. She fidgeted with the strap of her reticule. “There are other reasons, of course.”
“Yes?” Burke tried to lean casually back against the angel and missed.
“Oh, legal matters,” babbled Janie, stalling for time. “There’s the house to be closed up, and my mother’s estate dealt with, and Sebastian’s and Viola’s affairs … someone has to stay here to put the furniture in Holland covers and sign the papers.”
The wind whistled between the monuments as the silence stretched between them. “So there’s nothing else that might keep you here?”
“Is there?” Janie looked him full in the face, exhausted with pretending. And there it was, out in the open between them. “I won’t hold you to what you said the other night. If I was overwrought, so were you.”
“When you kissed me—” Burke’s voice came out as a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “When you kissed me, was that because you wanted to or just because you were trying to stop me embarrassing myself?”
There were a dozen easy options. Extraordinary circumstances. Overwrought emotions. Momentary madness. Except that it wasn’t momentary and it wasn’t madness. This had been building since the moment she had met him in her mother’s kitchen.
Janie took a deep breath, twining her fingers together. “Do you really want the disgraced daughter of a cursed line?”
“I want you.” Burke crossed the space between them in a single step, taking her hands in his. “I want you because you’re you. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about your line or curses. I know … I know that in the ordinary course of things, you’d never have looked at me.”
Janie looked at him, at the interesting hollows beneath his cheekbones, the green glint of his eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“You know what I mean.” Burke’s hands squeezed convulsively around hers. “I can only guess at what my family was. I’ve slept on the streets. I’ve stolen to feed myself. The other day, when I went to turn in that article, I almost turned back. Because I was afraid that the only reason I was doing it was so that I’d ruin your chances enough that you might look at me. Now how is that for impure motives?”
He was looking at her, as though waiting for her to condemn him. “Didn’t you tell me yourself that nobody’s motives are pure?” Janie felt like a prism: fragile, but with the chance of rainbows. “There were times when I wondered if I were pursuing the truth for my brother’s sake or because I liked sharing tea on trains with you.”
“Just the tea?” said Burke huskily, looking at her in a way that made the temperature feel several degrees warmer.
“You might also have been a factor,” said Janie primly. She looked helplessly at Burke, trying to find the words to describe what she felt, not the easy romance of poetry, but something raw and real, something as tangible as the warmth of Burke’s gloved hand in hers. “We have known each other so little and yet—even from that first day—it was as if, all my life, I had been dwelling among strangers and finally I had met the one person who spoke in my own tongue.”
“I know this is not the time,” said Burke. “I know that you’re in mourning. I’ve been cad enough without pressing my suit over your mother’s grave—but will you give me leave to court you?”
“We’ve never done anything in the appropriate way. I expect we never shall.” Instead of it being alarming, Janie found that thought rather encouraging. She had tried appropriate, and it had given her headaches. Maybe it was time to be gloriously, fearlessly inappropriate. Within reason. “I expect you to court me properly. Ice skating, walks in the park…”
“Will you require a chaperone?” inquired Burke with a hint of a grin, falling into step beside her as they began to walk towards the waiting carriage.
“No,” said Janie decidedly. “As soon as my period of mourning is over, I intend to find myself a room in a boardinghouse near the club and be the very model of the New Woman.”
“You won’t miss the marble halls?”
Janie grimaced. “I never liked the marble halls. It felt like living in a mausoleum. My only worry is—”
“What?” asked Burke, and Janie could hear the concern in his voice. It was wonderful and strange to have someone care for her because he cared for her. “Are you worried about living in a boardinghouse? I can help you find a respectable one.”
“No, it’s not that.” Long ago, they had promised each other honesty. Janie made a face at herself. “It sounds mad, but I keep half expecting Annabelle to walk through the door. I know I saw her in the water, but … they never did find her. What if she survived?” At the look on Burke’s face, she said quickly, “Don’t worry. I don’t intend to devote my life to a doomed quest to find her. It’s just that, if she does ever appear, it might be rather nice to have someone to tell her where her children are. I know it’s unlikely. But it’s not impossible.”
“They say nothing is impossible.” There was something very endearing about the effort Burke was making to see it her way. “A century ago, we would never have dreamed of buildings twenty stories tall or horseless carriages. She might have survived.”
“Clinging to a spar like Twelfth Night,” Janie offered. “Admittedly, that was a shipwreck and this was not, so it’s not quite the same.”
“No, not quite.” Burke held out a hand to help her into the carriage. “But stranger things have been known to happen.”
Janie looked down at him, standing beside the carriage, his hand still in hers. “I love you,” she said.
Burke choked on a laugh. “Is that so strange?”
Janie found that she was laughing as well, scandalizing the marble monuments and quiet tombs.
“No,” she said. “Or if it is, it’s as strange as the fact that you love me. Now come back to the house with me and have some tea.”
Across the river, the golden globe of the World shone above the other buildings like a beacon, guiding them home.