Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
After the Fire: Tuscany
When Jefferson Albright returned to Francesca’s life, she was a widow living in a Tuscan villa with her three eldest daughters—Lorelei, Allegra, and Charlotte.
It had been twenty years since Francesca and Jefferson had the affair that changed the course of both of their lives forever and brought Charlotte into the world.
Brokenhearted after the supposed death of her beloved Benjamin and the loss of the White Oak Lodge, Francesca wasn’t initially sure if she could find love in her heart for Jefferson again.
She wasn’t entirely sure if she wanted him around: a ghost from a distant past, a time when things were so murky that she thought she might fall apart or run.
They kept things slow, at first. Jefferson took her for long horseback riding trips through the rolling Tuscan hills and told her stories about the years since they’d last seen one another.
He said that after Benjamin fired him, he went to Manhattan for a little while before returning to Europe.
“I haven’t left the continent since,” he said, eyeing her from high up on horseback, brow arched.
He explained that he’d never gotten married, that he’d decided that wasn’t the course he wanted his life to take.
“I brought one child into the world,” he said knowingly.
“That felt like enough damage for one lifetime.”
After Jefferson’s return from the United States, he lived briefly in London before setting up shop in France, where he taught wealthy people how to ride horses and got serious about betting on horse races.
“I made a quiet fortune,” he said to Francesca with a soft smile.
“There’s an art form to it, I think. You have to know when to stop yourself.
You have to know how to trust your instincts. ”
When he pushed her for details about her own life since 1978, Francesca stalled.
Gripping the reins of her horse, she went through the dramatic eras of her life, the childbirths, the homework on the kitchen table, and the thousands upon thousands of White Oak Lodge guests.
She thought about little Nina, whom, after the fire, she’d sent to Michigan to live with Great-Aunt Genevieve.
Nina, who made her ache with guilt. How could she describe to Jefferson Albright that life had been far more interesting and far more frightening than she’d reckoned for?
How could she explain that she still sometimes thought she felt Benjamin in bed beside her despite the fact that he’d been gone since July 4th, 1998?
And Jack! How was it possible that she’d lost Jack!
And Angelo! Her darling little brother, the black sheep of the family, the one she never should have invited to come live with them. She throbbed with anger at herself and anger at what life had done to her. How much of it is my fault? She asked the universe, but got no answer.
Jefferson was patient with her. Just once, he reached for her hand and kissed it, sending cold shivers through her body. She knew that her daughters had caught wind of his identity and that Charlotte knew Jefferson was her real father. The facts of this swirled in her mind.
It was Francesca’s mother who, six months after Jefferson arrived, pulled Francesca aside and said, “He came here for you.”
Francesca blinked at her mother, overwhelmed with what was so obviously true. Her mother had been on Nantucket in 1978. She’d seen the broiling intensity between her and Jefferson. She knew precisely what Jefferson wanted.
“I don’t know what to do, Mama,” Francesca said, tears filling her eyes.
“Ask your heart,” her mother told her. “Listen to what it says.”
Not everyone is allowed a love story in life, Francesca knew.
It meant she was fortunate to have two: the first with Benjamin when she was little more than a girl, and a second with Jefferson when she was in her forties.
It wasn’t till after Charlotte left for Manhattan to make it in documentary film that Francesca allowed Jefferson to properly court her.
They went on glorious dates in Florence.
They dined at exquisite restaurants. They walked beneath a sky speckled with splendorous stars.
Francesca told Jefferson that she felt her marriage to Benjamin had often been dishonest. “We didn’t always know how to talk to each other.
We had so many children and so many tasks to tend to at the Lodge.
It meant our relationship often played third or fourth fiddle. ”
Jefferson listened intently and never made her feel guilty for wanting to pore over the details of her marriage to Benjamin.
It was as though he sensed she needed to process it all, that it had been a tumultuous few decades.
Francesca would never forget his kindness during this time.
It felt unfathomable that he’d come into her life at such a wonderful time.
They’d been dating for about four years before Jefferson moved into the villa full-time.
By then, Lorelei and Allegra had gotten places of their own and begun their own Italian lives.
Francesca no longer worried about them. She allowed herself to fully invest in her own happiness, her own future.
Many times, she and Jefferson discussed getting married, but ultimately decided not to bother.
They were happy and in love. They didn’t need paperwork to complicate things.
Francesca adored calling Jefferson her “boyfriend,” as though she were much younger, as though they’d just begun their lives.
In 2005, Francesca and Jefferson took a train journey first to Venice, then up through Vienna and into Prague, before finally landing in Berlin.
Francesca hadn’t been to Berlin since she was a high school student, back before the Berlin Wall fell, and she was mesmerized by the history of the old city, stepping from one side of the once-divided city to the other.
At a bar one evening, they overheard a younger American couple talking about “Nazi gold” and where it was hidden.
It triggered a memory in Francesca: the Whitmore treasure and all the rumors surrounding it.
She recalled Benjamin’s lie about finding Jefferson in the tunnels under the Lodge, where he’d apparently been “searching for treasure.”
Feeling loose from her beer, Francesca recounted the story to Jefferson, saying, “I can’t believe he lied about you looking for the treasure. You were never so foolish as to believe a story like that.”
A flicker of recognition went across Jefferson’s face. Francesca’s smile faltered.
“What was that?” she demanded. “What are you thinking about?”
Jefferson leaned closer to her so that his nose was half an inch from hers.
“I’ll tell you at the hotel.” He winked.
For a moment, Francesca guessed he was teasing her, putting on a show.
But all the way back to their room, he glanced from side to side anxiously, as though he was worried they were being followed. She’d never seen him act like this.
Back in their hotel, they lay on their bed and gazed into one another’s eyes.
“There is a treasure, Francesca,” he said softly. “At least, I’m pretty sure there is.”
Francesca initially barked with laughter, then stopped when she realized he wasn’t joking. “Did you find it?” She lurched up from the mattress and gaped at him. All this time, had Jefferson’s horse-race-betting wealth come from her dead husband’s family’s treasure?
“No,” Jefferson said, his face shadowed. “I searched and searched but couldn’t find it. The night Benjamin caught me wasn’t the first time I was down there.”
Francesca’s hands were clammy. “Tell me,” she begged. “I don’t understand.”
Jefferson told her the most incredible story: the accurate tale that had drawn him to the White Oak Lodge to begin with.
“Many, many years ago, my great-grandfather visited the White Oak Lodge,” he began.
“He came to America briefly to make money as a whaler, and he palled around with some gruff whalers who frequented the White Oak Lodge. This was long before it was some luxurious resort, obviously. But he took a liking to it and to the Whitmore folks and stayed on longer than the others. He was homesick, apparently, and liked Mrs. Whitmore’s cooking.
“While my great-grandfather was staying at the Lodge, Nantucket had the coldest and snowiest winter on record,” Jefferson went on.
“The Lodge grew painfully cold, and they huddled around the fire, waiting for the snow to melt and for winter to end. Occasionally, Mr. Whitmore would go downstairs to fetch firewood or salted meat or whatever else they kept down there. They had it stocked for winters precisely like those. Once, Mr. Whitmore recruited my great-grandfather to go down there and help him. It was then that my great-grandfather saw the tunnels and how expansive they were. It really captured his attention. He couldn’t get the tunnels out of his mind.
One night, when everyone was sleeping, he went down and started exploring.
This happened over and over again, with my great-grandfather creating a map in his mind.
He knew where all the provisions were located.
He knew where they kept the old furniture and the things they would have rather forgotten.
But it was after a month of exploring that he discovered the treasure. ”
Francesca slapped Jefferson on the shoulder. She was in disbelief. “You’re lying,” she said. “Or your great-grandfather was lying!”
“This is the story that’s been passed from generation to generation,” Jefferson said, hand on his heart.
“Why didn’t he take the treasure then and there?” Francesca demanded, deciding that this was a fantastical story that she’d try to enjoy rather than believe in. She settled back down on her pillow and grinned at her love.
“The story goes that the snow melted the very next day,” Jefferson went on.
“Sunshine poured over the island, and the whaling boats started up again. It was going to be my great-grandfather’s last chance to leave the island and go back to England.
More snow was surely coming, and he was going stir-crazy in the White Oak Lodge. ”
“I can relate to that,” Francesca breathed, remembering her early days of motherhood.
“He promised himself that he would return to the Lodge before his dying day and take the treasure,” Jefferson said. “But when he got home, he discovered that his old love had had a child, and that child was his. He was a father for the first time, and he didn’t want to miss it.”
“Everything changes after that,” Francesca agreed quietly. Respect for this ancient man filled her heart.
“But he drew a map,” Jefferson went on, his finger pointed at the ceiling. “I’ll show it to you when we get back to Tuscany. It’s the most treasured possession I have.”
Francesca grinned madly at her love, surprised and confused by him. How had he kept this secret from her for so many years?
“I couldn’t find it, obviously,” he said. “But it’s not as though I knew those tunnels inside and out. And I got distracted when I was at the White Oak Lodge, obviously. I didn’t know which way was up, most days, when I was falling in love with you.”
Francesca fell into him, drawing his body into hers and closing her eyes.
She didn’t believe in any such Whitmore treasure, couldn’t fathom it beneath the soil of the White Oak Lodge.
But if the rumor of that treasure had brought Jefferson Albright into her life, she was grateful for it.
It had delivered her a second chance at a different life.