Chapter Eight #2
“Julia would not have gotten far, of course, but she might not have fallen into the bushes had she not been carrying a valise with her party dress and shoes in it.”
Franklin, the coachman, spotted Julia clambering out of the bushes. When he came over to help, Julia burst into tears. He took her hand and led her to the stable, promising he would give her a fair listen.
Julia, who was great friends with all the stable hands, had a very friendly audience for her tales of woe, after which Franklin commenced negotiations with the fugitive.
He finally persuaded her to return to the house through the kitchen door, where she would be left with Cook, while he spoke to Elizabeth privately.
Unfortunately, Lillian had chosen that moment to arrive in her carriage. She was speaking to Elizabeth in the parlor when they spotted Franklin out the back window, leading Julia back to the house.
“What was Julia’s plan for after the performance?” Anna wondered.
Rosemary shook her head with a sad chuckle. “She is a dreadful scamp, of course, and she has the most fantastical ideas. But she does not think very far in advance.”
Rosemary went back upstairs, but Anna, hearing Lillian’s voice emanating from the parlor, took a few steps closer to the door.
“… do not take some action to improve that child’s behavior, I will be forced to speak to my son about it,” Lillian was saying.
As far as Anna could hear, Elizabeth did not reply.
“I wonder at you, Elizabeth! There is a grave danger that the child will become utterly incorrigible. She has no respect for authority. She is entirely too familiar with the servants. I’m sure she picks up that abominable slang she uses from the stables.
And her reading! The most unsuitable and improper books.
I gave her two improving stories for Christmas, but I do not think she has even cracked the spine of either. ”
Lillian was not wrong about that last point. Julia was practically allergic to “improving” stories.
“A child like that must be kept on the tightest of leads. She must be by your side as much as possible so that she might learn how to go on. And I do mean your side, Elizabeth, not her aunt’s. I know she spends a good deal of time with your sister—entire days in the summer, I gather.
“I did not object when my son took your sister in, but I am increasingly concerned about her influence over my granddaughter, and I believe she displays a sad want of gratitude for someone so well circumstanced.”
Though Anna had long sensed that Lillian held her in suspicion, the confirmation was rather unsettling.
“To what influence are you referring, Lillian?” Elizabeth asked. The touch of crispness in her tone was very slight indeed, but Anna was still gratified to hear it.
“Who can know, with that secretive air she has about her? Oh, don’t act confused. Judith has noticed it, too,” she said, impatiently.
“It is not too early to begin thinking about where Julia will be educated,” Lillian continued.
“She will need far more discipline than she will get in any school in this city. You and Jerome will come with me to Mrs. Fairchild’s presentation about the Parisian school that has done such wonders for Emily. ”
Done wonders in removing the responsibility from Mrs. Fairchild’s unwilling shoulders, Anna thought bitterly.
There was a pause, during which Lillian was evidently expecting some sort of answer. “Well, Elizabeth?” she said finally.
“We will consider it,” Elizabeth said.
A telltale grunt suggested Lillian was lifting her considerable bulk from her chair, in preparation for her departure, and Anna took a few steps away from the door.
“Julia also needs the civilizing influence of Newport, so it is fortunate that she has reached the age William was when he began spending August with me. If you are unable to tear yourself away from that god-awful wilderness in order to accompany her, I will keep her by my side for the month, and ensure she has a full regimen of activities that will put her among better, more cultured influences…”
Lillian’s voice throughout this speech was getting closer to the door, so Anna crept to the staircase and up to her room, where she sat on her bed, wondering what, if anything, she could possibly do.
Lillian’s condemnations of Julia had always been absurdly disproportionate. It felt as if it was getting worse, though, and now bordered on an obsession. Bullies were not deterred by submission, and Lillian was nothing if not a bully.
Anna was mystified by her sister’s passivity. Elizabeth had not been a particularly willful child, but nor had she been overly docile. She’d had some independence of spirit. When had she lost that?
Anna was tempted to conclude, The moment she married Jerome, but she quickly realized that was not correct.
At least once in the intervening years, Elizabeth had showed remarkable spirit and resolve and a willingness to do the right thing, even if it meant keeping a profound secret from her husband.
Anna remembered it like it was yesterday.
They were on Haven Point, and Elizabeth was well along in her second pregnancy.
Other than the usual restlessness she felt when prohibited from swatting at tennis or golf balls, Elizabeth had sailed through it.
That week, though, Anna had noticed that her sister seemed listless and distracted.
Despondent, even, which was unusual for someone of such even temperament.
Even the enormous storm they had one evening had not roused her from her torpor.
The next morning, Duncan Douglas came over to check for damages.
Anna was sitting with Elizabeth in the living room when he came downstairs after looking over the attic.
Fourwinds had come through relatively unscathed, but according to Duncan’s description, Portland had not been so fortunate.
The harbor was a mess, and trees and telegraph wires were down everywhere.
“A shipwreck, too,” he said. “Commercial vessel on its way south.”
When he left, Elizabeth’s stupor was gone, replaced by a strange agitation. Out of the blue, she announced she had to go to Portland. Anna offered to go in her place, but Elizabeth insisted she needed to go herself.
“I’ll come with you, then,” Anna said.
Though Elizabeth finally agreed, it was with obvious reluctance. On the steamer, Elizabeth gazed out the window, silent and preoccupied. It was only when they disembarked that she finally turned to Anna.
“I just need to check something,” she said.
With Anna in her wake, they headed to the office of one of the shipping companies. A crowd had gathered, and Elizabeth approached a man on the outskirts.
“Pardon me, but I gather one of the ships met with grief. Could you tell me which one?”
“The Margaret Ann,” he replied. “Dashed on the rocks off Cape Elizabeth. Some made it to safety, but four or five died. Did you know someone aboard?”
Elizabeth shook her head, but her ashen face said otherwise. They moved a few feet away. Anna looked at her sister, a question in her eyes.
“Please,” Elizabeth said, her voice strangled. “I promise I will explain later.”
A young man, clearly a sailor, emerged from the office and approached a young woman who stood beneath a tree about fifteen feet from where Anna and Elizabeth stood.
She wore a cloak but was obviously with child, even further along than Elizabeth.
The man shook his head, and she let out a cry.
He took her by the arm and led her inside the office.
After a beat, Elizabeth followed, Anna again trailing behind. Inside, a number of people were waiting to speak to the clerk, but they had evidently made way for the poor woman, who stood with her hands clasped before her, speaking with great urgency to the man behind the desk.
“I am sorry, but as I told Mr. O’Brien here, if you weren’t wed, Mr. Moore won’t pay out.”
“Come now,” the man, presumably Mr. O’Brien, said. “Calvin had the ring in his pocket!”
Calvin? Anna felt a terrible clutching sensation in her heart. Could this be Elizabeth’s Calvin, her childhood sweetheart from the lake? As far as Anna knew, her sister had not spoken to him since he broke her heart more than five years ago. With his next words, the clerk confirmed his identity.
“Sounds like Mr. Stannarius planned to do right by you, but I’m afraid it won’t change anything,” the clerk replied, his tone as sympathetic as it was certain.
The woman’s shoulders slumped, and Mr. O’Brien led her back outside. As soon as the door closed behind them, Elizabeth approached the clerk.
“This Mr. Moore truly will not help her?” Elizabeth asked. The clerk looked at her a bit oddly, clearly wondering why this elegant woman was taking such an interest in the case.
“Afraid not—stickler for morals, he is. He won’t be helping an unwed woman who got herself in a family way.”
Elizabeth managed a faint “Thank you” (while Anna refrained from asking how a woman could “get herself” in a family way).
Outside, Elizabeth stopped on the top stair, shaded her eyes, and looked about until she spotted Mr. O’Brien and the woman. He patted her shoulder and walked away, and the woman lowered herself onto a bench.
When Anna and Elizabeth reached her, she had her face in her hands.
“Excuse me,” Elizabeth said.
She removed her hands and looked up, her eyes wet.
She was small, fair-haired, and pale, with a roundish face.
From afar, Anna had thought she looked plain, particularly in comparison to Elizabeth, who was all elegant contrasts—lush dark hair, blue eyes, and thick lashes against her creamy complexion.
Now Anna saw that there was something taking about her, a dignity in her brown eyes and direct gaze.
“Yes?”
“I could not help overhearing you in the shipping office,” Elizabeth said. “I apprehend that you are in some trouble. I wondered if I might serve you in some way.”