The Forgotten Room (25 page)

“I—I—” Olive swallowed back the response that rose to her lips. What would Prunella do if she were crossed? Tell Harry? Of course she
would. She would tell Harry, and Harry would know. He would look at her with bewildered eyes, a confusion that would turn to betrayal and then to hatred. “Yes, of course,” she whispered, and her hands turned into fists at her sides.

Prunella laughed again. “You'll do whatever I say, won't you? You haven't any choice, because I know your secret.”

Olive felt sick. She stumbled to the dressing table and searched for the gloves, while Prunella went on behind her, in a voice high with triumph. “I am going to be married, don't you know, into one of the oldest and best families in New York, right about the time you find yourself alone and abandoned, living in some miserable tenement downtown. Perhaps you'll read about me in the papers sometime, Olive. The wedding's in October. I'm sure the photographs will be everywhere.”

Olive stalked back toward Prunella and thrust the gloves toward her beautiful cream-satin chest, then walked without pause straight on to the door, eyes blurring, while Prunella's vertiginous laugh rippled the air behind her.

The grand second-floor drawing room had been transformed into a ballroom, filled with all the glittering jewels of New York society, but Olive—balancing a dozen glasses of champagne on a single silver tray—saw only one man: Harry Pratt, who was dancing with the most beautiful girl in the world.

Well, maybe the lady in question wasn't
quite
that beautiful, not on objective study. But she
seemed
so, swirling about the room in the shelter of Harry's arms, beaming and blushing at something he was saying to her, as if the glow of Harry's attention contained magical properties
that altered its object into something better and more perfect than it was before.

Like Olive herself.

Olive looked away, because the sight was too much to bear. The girl had light brown hair set with brilliants, and her dress was made of a filmy pink stuff, so pale it was almost white. Not the sort of girl who would allow Harry Pratt to have his way with her on an attic staircase: oh, no. That was Olive's weakness, Olive's shame, though it hadn't felt like shame until this instant, when Harry danced with another girl. The sort of girl he was supposed to marry.

Harry had spoken often of Italy over the past week, and the eternal summer that awaited them there. But he hadn't mentioned marriage. Of course he hadn't. She had pretended not to notice the omission; she had perhaps convinced herself that the promise of marriage was implied in his offer.

But maybe it wasn't. Probably it wasn't. You ran off with housemaids, but there was no need to
marry
them, was there? No need to make it all legal and proper and binding. In case you changed your mind. In case you met another girl, a suitable girl.

Olive made her way along the edge of the crowd, bearing her champagne. A few hands reached out to pluck the glasses from her tray, without thanks, without recognition, without a single exchange of glances. And maybe this unexpected wound was the one that hurt the most: her invisibility. Once you donned a servant's uniform, you became invisible, not even quite human. This was necessary, of course, for the entire system of human servility to operate without friction, but still it rankled. She wanted to scream,
I'm just as good as you are! I speak French and I dance, I play the piano beautifully and recite poetry from memory and enunciate every consonant without flaw. A year ago, I was almost one of you!

But that didn't matter, did it? If you fell, you fell.

On the other side of the room, along the windows, the crowd was
thinning. Olive, stepping carefully so the bubbling glasses wouldn't tilt onto the polished parquet floor, approached a pair of men, identical in portly middle-aged formal dress. They stood next to one of the grand French windows, heads bent together, smoking forbidden cigars, which they tipped out the open bottom sash in furtive gestures.

“. . . magnificent, to be sure, but it will all go to the receivers quick enough if even one of his damned railroads fails . . .”

Olive slowed her steps.

“. . . which ones . . . invest . . . ?”

The other man was speaking, the nearest one, who faced away from Olive's line of approach. She couldn't make out the words very well, but the lift in his voice suggested a question.

She was at his elbow now. She held out the tray, and both men, without a glance, without missing a single beat of their conversation, reached out in unison to swipe away two sizzling glasses of champagne.

“. . . but the chiefest part is held in the damned P and R. He's up to his silly neck in it.”

The other man laughed. “Fool.”

“And so I told him, but he's got all this confounded faith in McLeod, thinks the expansion will pay off before they run out of money—”

“And the patience of creditors—”

“Well, that too, of course—”

Olive was forced to step away now, because even invisible serving maids might attract attention if they lingered too long. But she moved slowly, as if taking extreme care for the safety of the crystal, as a good servant should.

“Well, between you and me, I don't think the P and R lasts more than a week after Cleveland takes office.”

“. . . repeal . . . silver act . . .”

“Don't matter. Stretched too far, and I hear Morgan's about to pull the plug—”

The voice became muffled as the owner turned toward the window to knock away a length of ash from his guilty cigar. Olive's heart thumped into her ribs, making her dizzy. There was a little draft from under the sash, and it fluttered coldly against her long black skirt.

The P&R. That was the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad; even Olive knew that. Everybody knew the P&R; it was one of the largest companies in the world, transporting infinite tons of rich Pennsylvania anthracite coal from the rural mines to the mid-Atlantic ports, and now it wanted to extend its tentacles into New England. Its
expensive
tentacles, of course. You didn't build out a hundred miles of track without mountains of money. Railroads ate capital like Gus Pratt ate his breakfast bacon, and they were always one ill wind away from collapsing under the weight of their own debts.

Yes, even Olive knew that.

And she also remembered the fat file in Mr. Pratt's fat study, labeled
PHILADELPHIA & READING
.

The dancers blurred past, colorful and frenetic, whirling from prosperous and plentiful 1892 into the dazzling unknown riches of 1893. A handsome face winged before her and disappeared, and it was an instant or two before Olive realized that it was Harry. Harry, cradling his right arm around yet another beautiful girl, clasping her elegant gloved fingers with his left hand. He hadn't noticed Olive at all.

Not until half past eleven o'clock did Olive find her opportunity to steal into the study upstairs. She had emptied another tray of champagne and made for the stairs to the kitchen, but instead of descending into the basement she had left the tray on the Chippendale lowboy and slipped upward and out of sight.

This time, no hesitation stayed her hands. She knew exactly what she was doing, exactly what she was looking for. The leather portfolios flipped beneath her experienced fingers, until the familiar words appeared once more in the minute glow of the candle:
VAN ALAN
.

Familiar, and yet foreign. The name hardly seemed to belong to her at all anymore; she felt as if she were no more than a disembodied Olive, belonging to no one and to no particular name. She had spent the last week in a kind of fairyland, knowing that it was a fairyland and entering into it anyway, and now that she was emerging back into the real and practical world, she found she didn't have a place there, either. That she would never be the same Olive Van Alan as before. That she might never again know who Olive was, or should be.

She opened the portfolio, and the tactile sensation of the leather and the papers within brought her back to the task at hand. The truth: the only thing left to her.

There were perhaps thirty papers in all, arranged immaculately by date. Olive sifted through the early correspondence, detailing the Pratts' specifications and her father's tactful responses, referring to blueprints and drawings that must have been stored elsewhere. Then the requests for payment, each one neatly marked
PAID
in the sleek brown-black strokes of a confident fountain pen. The sums were not large, which didn't surprise Olive. According to Mrs. Van Alan, the bulk of her father's fee had been due upon completion and inspection of the mansion, and the sum was large enough that he had agreed to this particular arrangement with a gentleman's handshake.

Until she came to the last two pages. There was a letter from her
father, dated the twentieth of December 1891, noting the successful inspection of the house on the first of December and requesting payment of the balance of his fee for architectural services: nine thousand dollars.

But scribbled at the bottom of this particular letter was not the customary word
PAID
, which appeared on all the other invoices, followed by a date. Instead, the word—black, in thick, angry block letters—was
REFUSED
. Dated the second of January 1892.

Her father had shot himself the next day.

“Well, well.”

Lost in contemplation of that single word,
REFUSED
, Olive had almost forgotten where she was. She started upward, knocking over the candle, righting it again. Hot wax spilled over her fingers.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” came the voice of Miss Prunella Pratt, followed by the young lady's white figure, emerging from the shadowed doorway. “Am I disturbing you?”

Olive drew her spine straight, her shoulders back. “No,” she said.

Prunella stalked across the rug. She was holding a glass of wine in her hand, half-finished, and the reckless quality of her gait suggested it wasn't her first of the evening. “You poor dear thing. Shall I guess what you're doing?”

“I think it's obvious what I'm doing.”

“Well, I guess it is, at that. Using your position in this household to find out why your poor, innocent father left this house in disgrace. Why those heartless Pratts turned him out in the cold and ruined his good name.” Prunella stopped on the other side of the desk, placed her wineglass on the edge, and leaned forward. “Dear Olive. I could have saved you the trouble. You won't find it.”

“Won't I?”

“Oh, no. My father, you see, was actually quite kind, I think, considering the provocation. He was kind enough not to let the world know
the real reason he dismissed Mr. Van Alan without payment. Better the world should just think the man hadn't designed this house to my family's satisfaction.”

In the spare glow of the single candle, Prunella's youthful face took on a lurid shadow, and her pink lips and blue eyes lost all color. Olive felt as if something were clawing its way up the back of her head, a premonition of some kind, a warning of impending disaster.
Don't ask
, she thought.
Don't ask.

“Don't you want to know what it is, Olive? Dear, curious Olive. Don't you want justice for your poor departed father?”

“I already know my father is innocent of anything you might accuse him of.”

Prunella giggled. “Oh, my. So you really don't know. Well, I'll give you a hint. It's something to do with that pretty ruby necklace hanging there beneath your dress. A necklace that really belongs to someone else.”

Olive's hand went instinctively to her throat. “I don't know what you mean.”

“I was wondering where that necklace had gone. It was in my mother's jewel box, you know, and I begged her to let me wear it for my debut. She said I shouldn't, that it was too flashy for a debutante. Too
red
.” Another giggle. “So I took it myself, when her back was turned. And I do believe I was right. That necklace set my white dress off to perfection. It set me apart from the other girls, and Mr. Schuyler asked me to dance three times. Father turned absolutely purple when he noticed, of course, but it was worth it. Really, it's a shame you weren't there. Your father attended, if I recall.”