Women and Children First (25 page)

A date was set for Juliette and her mother to take tea with Robert’s mother and one of his sisters at their family home. Lady Mason-Parker reacted with great excitement.

‘If they approve of you, he’ll certainly propose. Gentlemen don’t invite you home to meet their mothers unless they have serious intentions.’ She eyed Juliette up and down. ‘We must get you a tighter corset. He might not notice your swollen belly but the women certainly would, and if they put two and two together your chances will go up in smoke.’

Juliette felt sick with nerves at the thought of meeting them. So many things could go wrong. ‘Mother, you mustn’t drop any hints about marriage. And you must back me up in the story that we are spending the summer with elderly relatives who need us with them at all times. Just say there is a pressing matter to be resolved but that we are not at liberty to discuss it.’

Her mother sighed. ‘If only you had made Robert fall in love with you a bit sooner, it would have been possible to convince him the child was his. I fear it is getting rather late in the day now. But maybe …’

‘I would never have tricked him. Never.’

‘You and your misplaced sense of morality. You’ll be the death of me.’

When they arrived at the tall, brownstone house Robert shared with his mother and sister, Juliette felt faint from the pressure of the corset her mother had squeezed her into, which seemed to force her innards up into the space normally occupied by her lungs. She wondered how the baby was coping with this constriction. Surely this must be worse for it than riding had been?

A footman showed them into a large, sunny drawing room decorated in blue, with handsome velvet chairs. Robert’s sister Eugenie came over to shake their hands then introduced them to her mother, who was close behind.

‘It’s a great pleasure to meet you at last. Robert has told us all about the close friendship you’ve developed since meeting on the
Carpathia
. We are so grateful that he had someone to talk to during those awful first few days when you must all have been in terrible shock. Please, sit down.’

Lady Mason-Parker smiled graciously. ‘Robert has been invaluable to us, helping to solve all the tricky little problems that arise when you lose your luggage and need to replenish it in a foreign country. He almost feels like a new member of our family.’

Juliette willed her mother to stop talking. They had barely sat down and already she was dropping hints. Above the fire-place there was a painting of a pot of white flowers with some yellow pears around the base. ‘What a beautiful picture!’ she exclaimed. ‘It looks just like a Cézanne.’

Robert’s mother smiled. ‘You obviously know your art. Yes, it is a Cézanne. We’re very lucky to have it.’ She launched into the story of how they came to possess it, and Juliette sighed with relief at her lucky guess, which had successfully redirected the conversation.

Juliette’s mother began to describe some of the paintings they had at home in Gloucestershire – dark portraits of ancestors and a couple of landscapes with horses – and as she spoke, she never missed an opportunity to mention their titles. ‘Lord Mason-Parker, the Earl of Gloucester, says … and my daughter, Lady Mason-Parker …’

Mrs Graham noticed, of course. ‘An earl indeed! How wonderful to have aristocratic blood!’ she exclaimed. ‘Over here, we are all more or less peasants.’

Juliette cut in: ‘In fact, it means very little. The title was given to a great-great-great grandfather of mine who donated a house to a mistress of King Charles II so she was close enough for him to slip out and visit in the middle of the night. Actually, I think there are many more “greats” in there, because it all happened two hundred and fifty years ago. We’ve personally done nothing at all to deserve it!’

The ladies laughed, but Lady Mason-Parker wasn’t amused. ‘Of course we have, Juliette.’ She turned to Mrs Graham. ‘There are a huge number of responsibilities associated with running an estate the size of ours, and we take the welfare of the local people very seriously.’

We’re making fools of ourselves, arguing like this
, Juliette worried.
How can I steer the conversation to safer ground?

Before she could introduce a new topic, though, Robert’s sister was saying how disappointed she was to hear that they wouldn’t be able to visit her while she was in Saratoga Springs. ‘We’ll be there throughout July and August to escape the heat of New York. My other sister Amelia will visit with her husband and children, and I know she’s dying to be introduced to you. Are you quite sure you won’t be able to come over for afternoon tea even?’

Juliette shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s imperative that we devote ourselves to our relatives.’

‘Do let me write down our address for you just in case you manage to slip away,’ Eugenie insisted. ‘There are some charming walks around the area and I’d love to spend more time getting acquainted.’

The whole meeting lasted under two hours but Juliette was on edge the whole time, certain she would inadvertently give herself away. Either that or her mother would alienate the Grahams with her snobbishness and pushiness. But at last, Robert arrived to convey them back to their hotel and the farewells seemed genuine and affectionate. He was silent throughout the journey and at the entrance to the Plaza Hotel, he asked if he might take Juliette out for dinner that evening.

‘He’ll check what his mother and sister say, and when they tell him they adore you, he will propose,’ Lady Mason-Parker predicted.

‘No, he won’t,’ Juliette frowned, but there was a kernel of hope inside her.
If only.

‘I promise you. I’m more experienced in affairs of the heart and I know that’s how respectable men operate.’

With this thought in mind, Juliette was even more nervous going down to meet Robert that evening than she had been meeting his mother and sister. Her hands were shaking as he helped her into the automobile and she couldn’t meet his eyes. Conversation between them felt unusually stilted, although he assured her that she had been a great hit with the Graham family women.

If he proposes, I must confess straight away that I am pregnant
, she decided.
I will lose him, but at least he will respect my honesty
.

It seemed the only decent thing to do – and yet, she couldn’t bear to lose him. She would never be able to see him again, a prospect that felt unbearable. Wasn’t there any way she could put him off and ask him to wait six months for her hand? If he proposed, that was. Maybe he wouldn’t.

In fact, they had barely sat down in the restaurant than Robert opened his heart. ‘You must know how I feel about you.’ He gazed into her eyes. ‘I think about you day and night and can hardly concentrate on my work for remembering some clever thing you have said, or recreating your smile in my mind’s eye.’ He took her hand across the table. ‘The circumstances in which we met could not have been more inauspicious but out of something quite so awful, surely some good can come?’

Juliette felt hot all over.

‘I might have waited longer to speak but I can’t bear the thought of you disappearing to some gloomy relatives for the whole summer, leaving me to exist on letters alone. I love you with all my heart and now we’ve got to know each other, it’s as if the sun has stopped shining when you are not with me. If only you will consent to marry me before you leave for Saratoga Springs, then I will become a member of your family and can help to solve your relatives’ problems. Please say yes.’

She covered her face with her hands, trying to still the pounding of her heart. ‘Oh God, I can’t tell you how difficult this is. I love you too, but I can’t invite you to my relatives’ this summer. I simply can’t. Mother and I have to do this on our own.’

‘Even if I were family?’

‘I’m sorry, but that’s the case.’

Robert looked crestfallen. ‘I fear that I will lose you during such a long separation. You will forget me and in the fall you’ll return to your family in England and I’ll never see you again.’

‘That won’t happen. I swear.’
How could she convince him?

‘Would you consider setting up home with me in the States? Would you not be homesick?’

‘I’d be happy to live wherever you were. I want to be with you, Robert. I do. Please believe me. I just can’t be with you this summer.’

He kissed the back of her hand and she shivered with pleasure. ‘In that case, let’s get married before you leave. The weeks will be easier to bear if you are my wife and I know for sure that you will come back to me.’

Juliette felt giddy with delight. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘Oh yes, let’s!’ It seemed the answer to all her worries, if Robert would accept that he couldn’t see her for a few months but would be waiting for her return.

But then, she began to see problems. ‘There’s no time to organise a wedding. My father and brother would be terribly disappointed not to be invited, and my mother will have a huge list of acquaintances to be included. I don’t see how we could manage it with less than three weeks before we go.’

‘They can all wait,’ Robert said, in a husky tone that brought goosebumps to her skin. ‘I want to marry
you
. We can go to City Hall next week and get legally married without telling anyone else. At least, we can simply tell them that we are engaged, if you like, so your mother can start her elaborate plans. We could then have a formal wedding in the winter some time, and I’d be delighted to come over to England for the ceremony. That’s traditional, isn’t it? The wedding is at the bride’s local church?’

‘Is it really possible to get married at City Hall without giving more notice? I don’t mind if you would rather just get engaged for now.’

The passion of his response amazed her. ‘I want you, Juliette. I want you so much that I can’t wait six months. Please say you’ll marry me just as soon as I can arrange it.’ He fished in the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a small box. He opened the lid and she could see the glitter of a diamond inside.

‘I will,’ she said firmly. ‘I can’t wait either.’

He leaned over the table to kiss her on the lips, and she thought she was going to faint with happiness.

Annie found life in Kingsbridge a struggle. The practicalities were easy enough: Father Kelly got Patrick into a good Catholic school, which he seemed to like, and he introduced her to a local woman who would look after the little ones sometimes to give her a break. She bought black mourning clothes for them all, even the baby, and every morning she stopped in the church to pray before going to buy groceries or do any of her other errands. She was a country girl, though, and she missed the green fields, trees and birdsong of her home in Cork. Everywhere she looked was grey and brown and black, the air smelled of gasoline and rubbish (which they called ‘trash’), and the sounds were of traffic and street sellers and sometimes the loud honking of a fire truck rushing to an emergency. A few spindly trees struggled out of holes dug through the concrete alongside the step streets, and Annie sometimes mused that she felt just like them. She’d been planted in the concrete herself and was finding it difficult to survive.

The one blessing was that she felt Finbarr around her a lot of the time. She heard his voice in her head, and sensed that he was content. When the others weren’t there, she kept up a running monologue with him: ‘Why do you think this dough won’t rise, Finbarr? What do they put in their strange American flour?’ ‘How long do you think it will be before my old knees give out, what with climbing these steps twice a day, sometimes more?’ ‘Did you see that your little sister drew a picture on her bedroom wall? I was going to give her a piece of my mind and then she told me it was the
Titanic
sinking and you in the water, so I’ve left it. You’d never guess if you saw it, but she says that’s what it is, bless her.’

Those were the good moments, when she talked to him in her head. During the bad moments, the burden of her loss came crashing back and she crouched in a corner of the apartment sobbing so hard she strained the muscles between her ribs and made herself hoarse. She never let Seamus or the children see her like that; she only succumbed to it on her own, and most of the time she tried not to because it was so excruciating. She often cried with Father Kelly, either in confession or when she talked with him in the sacristy. He encouraged her to talk and to cry whenever she felt the need, and that was healing crying. She felt better afterwards.

Father Kelly encouraged her to make friends and become involved in the local community, so she donated some loaves of soda bread to a yard sale to raise funds for the church, and she began to help by arranging the flowers in the church. A local florist brought them the blooms that were too overblown to sell, and she would select the colours that went together and arrange them into pretty bouquets. It was an uplifting task, and she suspected that some of the other women were jealous, but Father Kelly insisted she was the best person for the job.

‘You’ve got an eye for colour, Annie,’ he told her, and she replayed the compliment over and over in her head afterwards, repeating it to Seamus that evening.

‘You should do some embroidery to show him,’ her husband suggested. ‘I haven’t seen you embroidering since you got here. Maybe you should, because it always seemed to make you peaceful.’

She turned her head away.
How can I be peaceful when my son is drowned and his body is floating in the Atlantic?
But Seamus was right. She used to feel at peace when she was absorbed in her creations. Perhaps she should find a shop in which to buy a couple of embroidery threads and some needles. Maybe it would be good for her. Maybe she could start by making a sampler for Father Kelly to thank him for his kindness to her family.

She was overjoyed to find a pack of six assorted embroidery threads at a bargain price in a local discount store. Lovely colours they were too, with an emerald green, a deep blue, scarlet, primrose yellow, steely grey and white. She decided to make a picture of the church, surrounded by flowers, leafy trees and songbirds. Along the top she would embroider Father Kelly’s name, the name of the church and the date. Surely he would be pleased with that?

It was good to have a project to throw herself into, and she spent all her spare moments on it, taking the opportunity to talk to Finbarr in her head. ‘Do you think there should be clouds in the sky? Just one or two?’ ‘I’m putting in a bluetit, although I haven’t seen one here yet. Do you think they have them in America?’ Seamus was right. It definitely made her feel more peaceful.

Within two weeks of starting, she had finished her picture. She couldn’t afford to frame it but hoped that Father Kelly would be pleased all the same. Seamus had the glint of a tear in his eyes when he looked at it and pronounced it perfect.

She felt a little embarrassed as she handed it over to Father Kelly, explaining that she wanted to give him a gift to say thank you for all his support and she hoped he didn’t think it was frivolous.

He carried it over to the window so he could examine it properly in the light and for a while he didn’t say anything, making Annie feel nervous. Had she done something wrong? Broken some church law?

At last he turned and beamed at her. ‘I think this is the most precious gift I have ever been given. I had no idea you were so talented. Every stitch is perfect, and the design is glorious.’

‘Oh good, I’m glad you like it.’ She began to sort through some flowers, but he hadn’t finished.

‘I’m moved beyond measure that you would give this to me. I’ll cherish it for ever.’

Annie bit her lip with pleasure.

‘I would love to see more of your work,’ he continued.

‘I could do some for the next yard sale if you like,’ she suggested.

‘Your work’s far too good for that!’ he exclaimed. ‘No one round here could afford to pay what it is worth. But I wonder … I have a parishioner who works for one of New York’s top dressmakers, Camille Ozaney. Can I show her this picture and ask if she would like you to help embroider her ladies’ dresses?’

‘Oh, I’m not sure I’d have time what with the children and Seamus to look after.’ Annie thought for a moment. ‘But I suppose the money would be useful.’

‘Why don’t you have a chat with her?’

Camille Ozaney found Annie’s sampler charming and offered her a trial job embroidering two hundred tiny silver butterflies onto white taffeta for a ballgown. Annie had to shift a table over beside the window in the front room and cover it with white sheets to keep the costly fabric clean, and she sat there where the daylight was brightest, painstakingly creating her butterflies. There wasn’t a stray end of thread or an imprecise stitch, and the spacing between each butterfly was geometrically precise. She wrapped the finished work in tissue paper and took it down to Father Kelly, who delivered it to Mrs Ozaney.

More work followed: she was asked to stitch colourful oriental designs onto purple velvet collars, elaborate curlicues onto evening jackets, and flowers of all shapes and hues onto gowns of brocade and satin, chiffon and lace. Sometimes she was given jet beads or seed pearls to incorporate into the pattern, or sequins that looked like tiny mirrors. Camille would send a sketch with rough pencilled instructions, but Annie was the artist who rendered the images and brought them to life.

The work was absorbing and didn’t leave her much time to think, but she always felt as though Finbarr was around while she was embroidering. Roisin and Ciaran would play on the floor nearby, Patrick was at school and Seamus at work. She looked forward to those moments when she was at peace with the world.

‘Is it all right where you are?’ she asked Finbarr one time, in her thoughts.

Immediately an answer came: ‘Ma, it’s wonderful here. I’m with yer da and he sends his love. He’s been looking out for me since I arrived.’

Annie’s father had died ten years earlier, when Finbarr was just a baby. ‘That’s good. I hoped he would. It’s nice to think of the two of you together.’

She smiled at the image and carried on with her stitching.