Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Seeking an inscription, Annie turned the brooch over, but the silver backing bore only a hallmark.
It was a curious object, but not unusual.
The mystery lay in to whom the hair belonged.
Someone Janet had known, obviously, but it meant nothing to Annie.
Heaving a sigh, she put the brooch back in its box and looked around the room once more.
The only place she hadn’t checked was underneath the bed.
She went to it, dropped to her knees, and lifted the bedspread to peer beneath. There was only one object under there. Annie doubted, however, that Janet’s chamber pot would be hiding any secrets. Heaving another sigh, she sat back on her heels, her gaze wandering around the perimeter of the room.
“This is madness,” she muttered. “There’s nothing here. Nothing at…”
She paused, her attention drawn once more to the covered table by the window.
More specifically, the solid, flat base, partially visible through the fringe on the cloth.
What kind of table would have a solid, flat base?
A prickle wandered across Annie’s scalp as she went to investigate.
She lifted a corner of the cloth and gasped.
It wasn’t a table at all, she realized, but a chest. It seemed obvious to Annie that the cloth was intended to disguise it.
Her stomach tightened as a sense of foreboding crept over her, as if she was about to discover something that would change her life.
Annie removed the items from the top of the chest and set them on the bed.
The cloth came next, folded and placed on the chair.
The chest now stood naked, its keyhole empty.
Was it locked? Annie tested the lid. No, it wasn’t.
She glanced over her shoulder at the half-open door, an instinctive reaction.
She was, of course, quite alone. There was no sign of Ruffy.
“Get on with it, then,” she muttered, and opened the lid fully.
She dropped to her knees, hands gripping the edge of the chest as she peered down at the contents.
The first thing that caught her eye was a small, oval portrait of a woman, behind glass, framed in gold, and resting atop a white, satin-edged blanket.
Annie picked the portrait up and studied it.
The woman looked to be quite young and resembled Janet.
But it wasn’t Janet. Annie frowned and turned the portrait over, reading the dedication.
Mama, Chesterfield, 1822.
Janet’s mother, perhaps? Annie set it aside and reached for the blanket, which fell open as she lifted it from the chest. The original whiteness had succumbed to time, giving it a faint yellowish hue, the small size suggesting it had been made for an infant.
Wondering at its significance, she set that aside too, and peered into the chest once more.
The removal of the blanket had revealed a brown card-paper box, stiff with age, color faded, edges worn.
Annie lifted the lid, set it aside, and stared down at a small bundle of letters, held together by a yellow silk ribbon.
They also showed signs of age, the ribbon faded, the paper discolored.
The ink, too, had faded, though she made out the name ‘Janet’, on the envelope.
The ribbon partially hid the rest of what was written.
Not that it mattered. Annie wasn’t about to read any of the letters.
The mere thought of doing so was too repugnant.
Beneath the letters, however, was a leather portfolio. Curious, Annie lifted the letters out to set them aside. As she did so, the ribbon shifted slightly, revealing part of Janet’s surname, which leapt out at her.
She moved the ribbon further aside, exposing the surname in its entirety, her benumbed brain unable to make sense of what her eyes were seeing. Using her thumb, she flicked through the bundle, seeing the same name, again and again.
Miss Janet Fairfax
Nor were they addressed to Ferndale Grange, but to an address in Chesterfield.
Annie sat in bewildered silence. Fairfax?
Is Janet a relative? If so, why not admit it?
What does she have to hide? Certainly, Annie’s father had never mentioned her, or any other relative of his, come to that.
The only relative she’d ever been aware of was her deceased aunt.
But that was her mother’s sister, not her father’s.
And he’d never spoken of her. He’d refused to speak of her.
There had always been gaps in Annie’s childhood, but she’d long since learned not to ask about them. Questions remained unanswered, memories discouraged and unshared.
The soft chime of the hall clock drifted up the stairs, reminding Annie her time was rationed.
She gave herself a mental shake, set the letters aside, and reached for the portfolio.
As she gazed upon its pocked, leather surface, she had the impression she was standing, once again, on a precipice. Blindfolded.
She inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and opened the flap.
*
A while later, down in the kitchen, Annie stood back and surveyed her work.
Having read the contents of the portfolio, her first task had been to rearrange the kitchen back to the way it was when she’d been here as a four-year-old child.
It hadn’t taken very long. She’d simply moved the kitchen table and chairs to the center of the room, facing the window.
The table also served as the place to display her exhibit.
A sorry exposé of the colossal lies and inconceivable deceit that had, since birth, been a part of Annie’s world.
The soul-crushing evidence, discovered not a half an hour since, had torn the blindfold from Annie’s eyes and thrown her off the precipice, ending her life as she knew it.
“Eggcups,” she muttered, clambering onto a chair to remove them from the cupboard. “Mustn’t forget the eggcups, must we?”
Taking one eggcup at a time, she cradled them in the crook of her arm.
As she stepped down, one of them slid from her tenuous grasp and shattered on the stone floor.
Annie regarded the fragments for a moment, her eyes blurring with a sudden stab of remorse.
It faded quickly, shoved aside by resentment, anguish, and the agony of betrayal.
Blinking the threat of tears away, Annie put the remaining three egg cups on the table beside the yellowed blanket and the documents from the portfolio.
Then she stepped back and regarded her efforts once more.
Satisfied, she pulled out the chair facing the courtyard door and sat down to wait.
She wanted to see their reaction when they came through that door, their expressions when they saw the items on the table and realized what it meant.
She heard a noise at her feet and looked down to see Ruffy gazing up at her. As their eyes met, he whined and nuzzled her skirts. “Mind where you step, my friend,” she said, the dog’s simple display of affection threatening her fragile composure. “I didn’t clean up the mess.”
Once again, Annie thrust the threat of tears aside. Though her heart and soul begged for it, she refused to cry. She was determined to stay strong. To hold on. To face Hattie and Janet as she might a couple of strangers. For that is what they had become, after all. Strangers.
Whose veins ran with the same blood as her own.