The Forgotten Room (15 page)

By the time the multitude of Pratt clocks struck a united eleven o'clock, the glorious Christmas Eve dinner had been served and cleared, the coffee had been drunk, and the family had gathered together in the drawing room, trimming the tree under the imperious direction of Mrs. Pratt. (Christmas trees, apparently, must be trimmed
just so
for the
proper effect, which, according to Mrs. Pratt's taste, might best be described as baroque.)

Not that Olive cared. She was worn to pieces. She had just brought down the last tray of coffee cups and saucers and been dismissed by Mrs. Jackins, who thought she looked a little peaked. Peaked! She could hardly stand, and her mood was not improved by a glimpse of the Pratt family as she dragged herself past the open double doors of the magnificent second-floor drawing room (
ballroom
might be a better word, and indeed Miss Prunella's engagement party was due to take place there next week), richly dressed, laughing and making merry. Well, Harry was laughing, anyway, balancing on a stepladder to light a few more candles on that twenty-foot tree brought down from the Adirondacks on a special railroad car. The tip nearly brushed the ceiling plasterwork. A nearby phonograph played a tinny Christmas carol, and the air swelled with the scent of pine and cigar smoke and prosperity.

As Olive paused, heart bursting, Harry glanced inevitably toward the doorway from his perch, and his eyes met hers. His smile widened, and he winked—yes, actually
winked
!—as if it were all a great joke, and Olive had also been celebrating her Christmas Eve amid ten-course meals and the loving rituals of her gathered family, instead of dragging her weary body about a mansion that was not hers, seeing to the comfort of people she did not especially like.

She turned and hurried down the landing and up the stairs, away from the ring of tipsy Pratt laughter and tinny Pratt phonographs, and as she arrived at the third-floor landing she came face-to-face with the closed door of Mr. Pratt's study.

Closed, but not locked.

She rested her hand on the newel post and stared at the door, and for an instant she almost thought she saw her father's face, gazing at her in reproach. A line of Shakespeare drifted through her head—
Oh,
Shakespeare!
she thought with a pang—like a passing ghost:
Do not forget. This visitation / Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

Thy almost blunted purpose.

She had always scorned Hamlet, just a little. Five acts of vacillation, scene after scene of contemplation instead of action, putting on silly plays instead of simply confronting the usurper that was Claudius: man-to-man, face-to-face. But she was worse, wasn't she? One smile from Harry Pratt, and she had forgotten almost entirely what she was here to do. She was willing to labor all day, to iron Pratt linens and scrub Pratt boot prints from the floor, and for what? For the chance to meet Harry in the hidden room at the top of the house? To bare herself before him, to serve Harry's needs the way her father had served those of Mr. Pratt?

Because she hadn't taken a single step toward justice, had she? Not since she had sunk herself a week ago into the lavender-scented cushions in the attic room and taken off her dressing gown for Harry Pratt.

Harry and his wink.

Master Harry leaves for college in less than a fortnight, and where will you be?

She was weak, wasn't she? A weak, deluded little fool: extracting Harry's tender little notes from the hole in the brick wall as if they were jewels, leaving one or two in return. Stealing upstairs when she should be sleeping, dreaming about Harry when she should be planning his family's just deserts.

Atop the newel post, her hand curled into a fist. She stepped forward with determination and opened the study door.

She was not entirely unprepared for this moment. Around her neck, on a simple silver chain, hung the key that fit the lock on Mr. Pratt's desk: a key obtained at great effort, from a wax imprint of the original during one of Mrs. Keane's rare inattentive moments. Every morning she had looped it over her head; every day it had dangled on her chest,
beneath her neat starched uniform, waiting for the opportunity to strike. That opportunity hadn't arrived, of course. She was always too busy, or the family too close by, or her body too enervated. Or an appointment upstairs with Harry too imminent.

But now. Now the family was busy trimming the Christmas tree in the drawing room, while the phonograph drowned out any untoward noises with its hollow rendition of “The Bottom of the Punchbowl.” Harry was trapped on a stepladder, doing his mother's bidding. There was no question of anyone wandering into Mr. Pratt's study, tonight of all nights.

She was familiar with the room now and needed no light to find her way to the massive desk. Her hands shook. She was doing this, actually doing this. She drew the key out from beneath her collar, and the metal warmed her skin. Where was the drawer? There it was, the lock solid beneath her fingertips. She guided the key inside, holding one hand with the other to keep it steady, moving quickly so she wouldn't have time to think about it, wouldn't have time to lose her nerve.

The lock turned; the drawer slid obediently open. Now she needed a light. She straightened and found the lamp on the desk and switched it on, hoping the thin bar of light beneath the door would go unnoticed, should someone—a maid, the housekeeper—pass by the landing.

The drawer was full of leather portfolios, each one labeled at the top by a small rectangle of cardboard set in a thin metal frame. She flipped through them all—
BAKER, HANSBOROUGH CO
., KEYSTONE STEEL, NEW
YORK CENTRAL
—and closed the drawer again.

The next drawer yielded nothing, nor did the next. Her pulse knocked furiously in her neck. The reek of leather was beginning to make her feel ill. She stuck the key into the lock of the final drawer and yanked it open.

AMES, HA
RDING CO., NORTHERN PA
CIFIC
. Another railroad;
railroads were all the rage on Wall Street, weren't they?
PHILADELPHIA & R
EADING, STRATHCOTE & HA
RPER
.

And then:
VAN ALAN
.

Olive fell back on her heels. She hadn't really expected to find it; she had even, in her heart, perhaps been hoping she wouldn't. Finding something meant . . . well,
finding
something. Discovering the true story, forcing herself to act. She had spent the past year in righteous fury, trembling with the need to destroy the man who had destroyed her father and her family. And now the whole affair lay before her in a plain leather portfolio, the documented scale of Mr. Pratt's perfidy, and all of a sudden she didn't want to know. Didn't want to bring the poisoned chalice to her lips.

Didn't want this at all.

But you have to,
she told herself, staring at the leather, the black block letters spelling out her own name, her own lost family. She could still hear the phonograph, straining through the floor below. Somebody broke out in hearty male laughter.

Thy almost blunted purpose.

She reached into the drawer and set her hands on either side of the portfolio.

The doorknob rattled.

In a flash, she slammed the drawer shut and turned the lock. From above the desk came the faint creak of hinges, a wedge of light from the hallway beyond. Olive swallowed back her heart and pressed her fingers into the floor, to keep her body from shaking.

“Olive? Is that you?”

Harry.

She let out a long column of air, the full contents of her lungs.

“Olive, darling. It's just me.” The click of the door closing again. “I'm sorry it took me so long to get away. I had to make up an excuse
about too much eggnog. I'm not sure if anyone believed me.” A chuckle. “You're not hiding, are you?”

There was no point in pretending, was there? Olive rose slowly from behind the desk. Harry stood just outside the circle of light from the desk lamp, tall and reassuring in his black-and-white dinner dress, hair glinting gold.

“I didn't want anyone to catch me,” she said shakily.

“Well, you chose the right spot. I never would have guessed if I didn't see the light beneath the door.” He held out his hand. “Come along. I've got a special Christmas surprise for you upstairs.”

“A surprise?”

He came around the corner of the desk and took her hand. “Why, you're shaking like a leaf. Poor Olive.” He kissed her hand. “You must be exhausted, and I'm keeping you up like a scoundrel. But don't worry. That will all be over soon.”

“Over?”

Harry turned off the lamp, leaned down, and kissed the tip of her nose. “Just come with me, will you? I promise it will be worth your while.”

She had no choice but to follow him as he led her by the hand toward the door. He opened it, peeked out, told her the coast was clear, and drew her out before him into the empty glamour of the third-floor landing.

As he shut the door behind them, Harry gave a little shudder. “I never did like that room very much,” he whispered in her ear.

J
ULY 1920

Lucy

“Miss Young? Will you escort Mr. Ravenel to the elevator?”

“Yes, of course.” Lucy hastily pushed back her chair as the door to Mr. Schuyler's office opened and her employer motioned to Mr. Ravenel to precede him.

The two were a study in contrasts, Mr. Schuyler fairer, thinner, taller; Mr. Ravenel with his velvety eyes and his rugby player's muscles. He wore a suit in a lightweight fabric; the pale color brought out the sun on his skin, making Mr. Schuyler seem pale and office bound in comparison.

“Thank you for your assistance in this matter, sir,” said Mr. Ravenel, holding out his hand to Mr. Schuyler.

“Not at all, not at all.” Mr. Schuyler was smiling—smiling with his teeth, but not his eyes. “I'll be in touch as soon as I have some answers to your questions. Miss Young?”

“Yes, sir.” With brisk efficiency, Lucy handed Mr. Ravenel his hat. “If you would be so good as to follow me?”

“With pleasure, Miss Young,” said Mr. Ravenel, and tipped his hat courteously to Mr. Schuyler. All very proper, all very correct. As the office door closed, he said in a lower voice, a voice for Lucy's ears only, “I enjoyed our outing on Saturday.”

Lucy cast a quick, nervous look over her shoulder. Silly of her. It wasn't as though there had been anything illicit about the outing. Not even her grandmother could find anything compromising about a walk in the park in broad daylight.

They had stopped at a street cart for ice-cream sandwiches, Mr. Ravenel teasing Lucy for the dainty way she licked the ice cream from the sides first, so the melting treat wouldn't drip on her gloves. He had taken great bites of his sandwich, the way it was meant to be eaten, he said provocatively, driving Lucy to a demonstration of her own highly superior technique. Mr. Ravenel nobly refrained from gloating when the ice cream dripped on her all the same.

With sticky fingers, they had taken to the carousel, queuing behind girls in hats with long ribbons and boys in knickerbockers for their chance at two of the brightly painted horses. Rosinante, Mr. Ravenel had called his, with a grin that told Lucy that there was a joke she was meant to understand. They had raced their steeds all around the circle as the calliope played and small children squealed with excitement around them.

Somewhere between the ice-cream sandwich and the carousel, Lucy had forgotten that Mr. Ravenel was a client, forgotten that she was meant to be entertaining him for Mr. Schuyler, and just tipped her head back to the bright summer sky and enjoyed the day as she hadn't enjoyed anything since her father had died last fall, and, with him, the last sense of belonging she had.

But now, back in the office, Lucy felt as though a shadow had been cast over their bright outing, as though there were something clandestine about it.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy said primly, “All of us at the firm want to make sure that you enjoy your stay in New York.”

Mr. Ravenel paused with her before the elevator, his dark eyes meeting hers with quiet amusement. “Is that so? How very public spirited.”

Lucy could feel the color rising in her cheeks. The way she had laughed and shouted on the horse—it hadn't been public spirited at all. Or terribly ladylike.

But Mr. Ravenel hadn't seemed to mind.

“Would you,” said Mr. Ravenel solemnly, leaning one palm against the wall, “consider being an angel of mercy, and, out of the goodness of your heart, devoting another day to entertaining a stranded traveler?”

Lucy tried to squelch the flare of pleasure his question evoked. “Aren't you going back to Charleston?”

“Not quite yet,” said Mr. Ravenel, and while his face didn't change, she saw his eyes flick briefly back to the hallway that led back to Mr. Schuyler's office. “There are matters still to be resolved.”

“Well, in that case . . . If it's for the good of the firm . . .”

“I'll meet you on Saturday at noon. By the carousel.” His gaze dipped to the prim collar of her blouse. “You're not wearing your necklace.”

She was, actually, beneath her shirt, as she had since her mother had given it to her. It made her feel closer to her mother, as though carrying around this key might somehow unlock her past.

Lucy ducked her head. “It's not the sort of thing one wears to work.”

Mr. Ravenel grinned at her. “Ah, yes. Work.” There was a ping as the elevator arrived. The elevator man cranked open the grill. In formal tones, Mr. Ravenel said, “Thank you very much for your assistance, Miss Young. You are a credit to Cromwell, Polk and Moore.”

Lucy tipped her head. “Mr. Ravenel.”

And he was gone. But only until Saturday.

Noon. At the carousel. Lucy suppressed a silly smile. Had there ever been so innocent an assignation?

Not that it was an assignation, she reminded herself hastily, and picked up her pace as she walked briskly back to her desk. She had a forty-three-page contract to type, in triplicate, before she could call it a night.

And Mr. Ravenel was a client, just a client.

Lucy took the cover back off her typewriting machine, but before she could spool a piece of paper into the machine, Philip Schuyler poked his head out of his office, his usually genial face grim. “Where did you take him? Timbuktu?”

It was so unlike his usual manner—even on their longest evenings, Mr. Schuyler was nothing but polite—that Lucy couldn't think what to say.

“I—,” she began. “The elevator—”

“Never mind.” Philip Schuyler gave his head an irritable shake. “Get Mrs. Schuyler on the line.”

Usually, he requested. This was a command. Lucy stood a little straighter. “Yes, Mr. Schuyler. Right away, Mr. Schuyler.”

Philip Schuyler pressed his fingers to his temples. “I didn't mean to snap at you.” He gave a forced laugh. “Any more of this, and you'll be begging Miss Meechum to reassign you.”

Lucy felt something tight in her chest unclench. “I've worked for the others. I wouldn't trade.”

Philip Schuyler gave a crooked smile. “I suppose that's something, isn't it? Just put the call through, will you, Lucy?”

It was back to work, then. “Right away, Mr. Schuyler. Would you like some coffee with that?”

“No,” said Philip Schuyler grimly. “Gin. And make it a double.”

The door of the office clicked sharply shut behind him.

Lucy was fairly sure he was joking about the gin. At least, she
hoped he was. She decided, in lieu of strong spirits, to make him that cup of coffee. And it had nothing to do with the fact that she couldn't hear his conversation through the thick oak of his office door. A good secretary anticipated her employer's needs, and if that need involved walking quietly into his office while he was in the middle of a phone call . . . well, that was just the sort of thing good secretaries did.

She could hear his voice through the door, not the words themselves, but the rhythm of it, a crisp staccato entirely unlike his usual bantering tones.

Coffee cup balanced in one hand, Lucy gently turned the knob with the other, just as Mr. Schuyler said, “What the devil were you thinking?”

Mercifully, the words were directed to his stepmother and not to Lucy. Lucy didn't think she wanted to be on the receiving end of that tone. He sounded like a man at the end of his rope, a good-natured man pushed to cracking.

Seeing Lucy with the coffee, he gave her a curt nod and gestured to her to set it down on the desk, mouthing,
T
hank you
, before saying sharply, “Not this time, Prunella.”

Lucy wondered what Mrs. Schuyler had landed on her stepson's lap this time. Another Cartier bill past due? A demand that he squire her to a charity ball? Over the past few weeks, Lucy had seen Mr. Schuyler deal with both of those scenarios and more, fielding his stepmother's demands with patience and humor—if, occasionally, with a roll of the eyes.

But not this time. Whatever it was, Prunella Pratt Schuyler appeared to have gotten on her stepson's last nerve.

Mr. Schuyler's other telephone buzzed. Lucy picked it up. “Mr. Schuyler's office.”

“Miss Young?” It was the breathy girl in the telephone exchange.
Lucy didn't know them by sight, but she knew them by voice. This voice sounded like a cross between a pinup and a consumptive. “I have Miss Shippen for Mr. Schuyler.”

She said
Miss Shippen
the way one might say
Mary Pickford
, with that same tone of breathy reverence. Or maybe it was just that she made everything sound breathy.

Didi Shippen's beautiful face smirked at Lucy from the silver frame on Mr. Schuyler's desk.

“Just a moment,” said Lucy. “Miss Shippen for you.”

Philip Schuyler broke into whatever his stepmother was saying with a terse, “I have to go.” To Lucy, he said, “Have them put her through.”

Lucy could hear Prunella Schuyler's voice down the line, squawking in well-bred indignation.

“Here,” she said, and held out the earpiece to him. Usually, Philip Schuyler took the base of the phone in his hand, turning away slightly in his chair, his voice dropping indulgently as he said, “Hello, sweetheart.”

This time, he picked up the receiver with a terse, “Yes, Didi?”

He sounded less than thrilled. Or maybe that was just the aftermath of his conversation with his stepmother.

Without bothering to put a hand over the mouthpiece, he said, “Miss Young, do you have the Kiplinger contract?”

Lucy took the hint. “Right away, sir.”

Loudly, Philip Schuyler said, “They want it tomorrow morning, remember.”

“Tomorrow morning—but I thought—”

“Yes, I'll be right with you, Miss Young.” Philip Schuyler held a finger to his lips. Ostensibly to Lucy, he said, “I know you need those documents initialed. Sorry, Didi; we're very busy here just now.”

Quietly, Lucy moved toward the office door, ignoring Philip
Schuyler's flapping hand. She didn't like the idea of helping Mr. Schuyler lie to his fiancée. Bad enough that she had lied to Mr. Ravenel for him.

Not that they were big lies, either of them. They were just little lies, lies of convenience. But maybe that was what made her so squirmy, knowing that a little lie could grow and grow until everything became a lie.

She was living proof of that.

Philip Schuyler was arguing with his fiancée, in a voice from which the smooth patina was beginning to rub off. “Tomorrow? But I— Yes, I know you told Mrs. Reinhardt, but . . . I can't just— Bother it, Didi, they call it work for a reason. That's what I do here; I work.”

An ominous pause. “I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to imply— Of course you come first, but . . . I can't just drop everything.”

Lucy slipped out the door and back to her desk. Through the open doorway, she could hear Philip Schuyler desperately trying to get a word in, reduced to disjointed monosyllables. “But—I— Really, Didi! You can't— Right. Fine.”

Down went the receiver, hard enough to send a jolt straight through to the girls at the switchboard.

Lucy rapidly began typing, as loud and as fast as she could.

The door of the office crashed open. “I can't take another minute in this damn—this blasted office.”

“Sir?” Lucy said, looking up from her typewriter, the efficient secretary ready to leap into action.

Philip Schuyler gestured imperiously at her. “Come on. Get your hat. We're going out.”

“But . . . sir.” Lucy's typing faded from a rapid staccato to a muted peck. “I thought you wanted the Kiplinger contract.”

“It will wait until tomorrow.”

Lucy raised her brows. “I thought you said they wanted it tomorrow.”

“They want it next Thursday.” Philip Schuyler grabbed the typewriter cover and dropped it over the machine, half-written page and all, as Lucy made a noise of protest. “I lied. Come on. I promised you the biggest martini in Manhattan, didn't I?”

“I'm not sure if it was a promise or a threat,” said Lucy with some asperity. She was going to have to type that page all over now; the heavy cover had crumpled it beyond repair.

“Is that your hat? Get your gloves on and we'll go.” With some of his old charm, Mr. Schuyler held out a hand to her. “Didn't Miss Meechum tell you that it's your obligation to keep your employer happy?”

“She didn't advise the application of gin,” said Lucy tartly, but she put on her hat and gloves all the same, glad that she had worn her new hat, a straw hat, trimmed with green ribbons the color of her mother's eyes.

“Gin, coffee, it's all the same.” Philip Schuyler was walking so quickly that Lucy could scarcely keep up, hurrying behind him to the elevator. “Lord, what a day. It's enough to drive a man to the bottle. Let's get you that martini, shall we?”

“Don't you mean let's get you that martini?” Lucy protested breathlessly.