A Fall of Marigolds (20 page)

A
preautumn chill hugged the island like a shawl when I awoke the next morning. Outside my little window I saw only mist. I had packed the night before and was ready to go long before the ferry house would even be open. I lingered at my breakfast, imagining a dozen times getting myself onto the boat alone.

It seemed I was going back to the beginning, back to my childhood home, where everything began for me. I was comforted by this notion as I finally made my way to the ferry house a few minutes before nine. I found that I wanted more than anything to be free of the fire’s last embers and the hopeless image of a treasured man falling to the unforgiving ground. And because so much of Edward was now tied to Andrew Gwynn and our twin sorrows, I was ready to be free of him, too. Before I left for Scotland I would burn Lily’s letter and ask Dolly to give the scarf to one of the poorer women in the wards.

I would be finished with this. All of it.

My resolve and the persistent morning mist allowed me to step onto the ferry’s gangplank with only the slightest trepidation. I couldn’t see much of the New York skyline as I took a seat near a window. The city that had become something of a specter to me during the last six months was still draped in gauze, or maybe the specter was now gauze itself, weightless and thin.

When we docked at Battery Park twenty minutes later, I boarded a trolley that took me to the train station, and within the hour I was headed toward Pennsylvania.

Home.

•   •   •

MY
time in nursing school was the only other extended period when I’d been away from my family for more than a week or two. I’d enjoyed a few visits home for holidays and term breaks. Before that, my travels had only ever taken me to New York, Boston, and, of course, Philadelphia.

My exile on Ellis had kept me away longer than at any other time in my life. The closer the train got to home, the more I realized I had missed being surrounded by people who loved me.

I wanted to complete the journey from misted island to beloved home on my own, so I’d purposely not mentioned which train I would be on. When we pulled into the station at Newton Square, I found, as I had hoped, someone I knew heading toward where I was going. My surprise arrival brought tears of joy to my mother’s eyes.

That evening, Henrietta, her husband, and their little ones gathered at my parents’ house to welcome me, share a meal, reminisce about old times. The fire was never brought up, nor my long months on the island, as if everyone had been warned not to say anything about it. When I helped my mother with the dessert dishes, she at last spoke of it, in a way that surprised me.

“It was personal for you, wasn’t it? The fire.” She plunged a china dish into a pan of soapy water. Tendrils of fine hair framed her face when she turned to me, and I thought for the first time how much I looked like her.

“Yes.”

“Sometimes I wish you had never gone to Manhattan. Most times, actually.”

A response to her comment did not come quickly. I hadn’t thought about it before, but in that moment I realized I did not wish I had never gone, despite everything that had happened, and was still happening.

Falling in love with Edward, watching him die, meeting Andrew Gwynn, finding the letter, reading the poem, meeting Ethan—my life seemed more fully layered because of the choices I had made, both consciously and in ignorance.

I didn’t wish I’d never gone to New York, but I did wish to be free of its dark hold on me. I wanted to bury what had died within me and be done with it so that I could return someday and find only a distant memory of what had happened there.

“I’ll be all right,” I finally said, by way of answer.

My mother touched my face with her wet hand—a caress that felt almost like a cleansing. “I know you will be.”

•   •   •

IN
the morning, I joined my father at his practice, though he attempted briefly to talk me out of working on my first full day home. But I think he quickly understood that I was reconnecting with the part of my life that hadn’t left home. When we arrived at his office, I went from room to room, inhaling the scent of newness, for a doctor’s office is that way; it is new every morning. It has to be. There can be no lingering remnants of disease or decay from the day before.

The time passed quickly, sweetly. I wrote to my father’s friend Professor Bartlett and his wife, Beatrice, and officially accepted the position as her private nurse. I gave them my address on Ellis and told them I was ready to set sail anytime after the end of the month.

On my last night my father asked me whether I wanted to read the news accounts of the fire. He had saved the newspapers for me, thinking that someday I would want them. My mind immediately went to the day I had read Edward’s obituary, and the remembered heaviness in my chest. I declined. And he said nothing more about them. I was finished with it.

There were tears all around when my parents drove me to Philadelphia to take the train back to New York. They offered to come with me, but I could see no purpose in delaying our good-byes. As we embraced, I thanked my father for finding the job for me, and told him I was sure the months would pass quickly, as time so often does. I promised I would write as soon as we arrived in Edinburgh and had a permanent address.

I arrived back in New York late in the day, as the sun was turning the city amber and cerulean. An hour later, I stepped aboard the ferry that would take me to the island that no longer felt like mine.

•   •   •

THE
first week back at Ellis, I felt very much like the droves of immigrants who stood day after day in the health inspection line where I now worked. They were both anxious and hopeful, just as I was. They were steps away from a new beginning, a beginning that would test their resolve, just as I was. And they had never been where they were about to go, they scarcely spoke the language of their new surroundings, and in many ways, I, too, was about to embark as a foreigner to an untried place.

I saw Ethan here and there, in the dining hall, in the corridors. But I avoided being near him, as I needed to keep a safe distance from those who were tied to the life I was leaving behind: Edward Brim, Andrew Gwynn, Ethan Randall. I could not risk the fragile hold I had on my rebirth by contemplating a future with Ethan. He seemed perplexed by my aloof behavior. Dolly thought it was plain senseless.

“He’s only ever looked out for your best interests, Clara. He doesn’t deserve a cold shoulder from you,” she said one night in our bedroom. “You’re not even giving him a chance.”

“A chance at what? I’m leaving the country.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. You’re not leaving the planet, for God’s sake.”

“I’m leaving this
island
.”

And I went into the bathroom to end the conversation.

I was able to soothe her anger at me by joining her and Nellie and Ivy the following Saturday for an evening out in Manhattan. But even then, I was unable to give myself fully over to relaxation and frivolity. I counted the hours, silently and unbeknownst to her, until we returned. Dolly assumed I’d had a great time and I let her believe it. On Monday morning, I was ready to begin my last week at Ellis. On Saturday I would say my good-byes, including the promised farewell to Ethan Randall. I would pack my few things. I would tearfully hug Dolly, who would probably pretend she was glad to see me go so she could have the bed by the window. I would give her Lily’s scarf and ask that she find an immigrant woman in the wards who needed a dash of something beautiful and give it to her. And I would take the letter and the certificate of annulment to the incinerator and throw them in myself.

Then I would be free.

I rehearsed these farewell steps in my mind often as that last week began. I tried to focus on tasks at hand but I often found my mind wandering.

Late on Tuesday, I was sent from the health inspection room to find an interpreter. I made my way into the great hall, which was busy as usual. Mrs. Meade, the nurse who had double-teamed with me in the scarlet fever ward, was also in the hall near one of the information desks. She was talking to someone, but he did not appear to be an immigrant. He carried a leather case meant to hold papers, not clothing, and his attire was that of a first-class passenger, whom we hardly ever saw at the hospital.

When she saw me, she flagged me over.

“Nurse Wood. Perhaps you can help this gentleman,” she said when I closed the distance between us.

I turned to the man. He smiled politely. “Good morning. The name’s Chester Hartwell.”

British.

“I’m Miss Wood. How can I help you?”

“He’s looking for one of the patients you cared for. Mr. Andrew Gwynn?” Mrs. Meade said.

I felt my pulse take a stutter step. Had something gone awry when Andrew was discharged? Did his brother, Nigel, not come for him?

“I’m a private investigator, Miss Wood.” He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and handed me a card with a London address.

I stared at his title. My mind raced with possibilities as to why a British man in a nice suit was looking for Andrew. Nothing good came to mind.

I handed his card back to him. “I’m sorry I can’t help you. Mr. Gwynn has been discharged.”

“Yes, I know.” The confidence in his tone revealed that Chester Hartwell already knew a great deal. “I was hoping you could tell me where he was headed after his discharge.”

Despite his expensive clothes and polished shoes I did not trust this man. I sensed within my being that he was a threat to Andrew. A line of sweat opened on my brow. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hartwell, but—”

“It’s very important that I find Mr. Gwynn.”

“But as I have said, he’s been discharged.” My voice sounded weak in my ears.

Chester Hartwell cocked his head knowingly, and then nodded toward Mrs. Meade. “I understand from your colleague here that you were Mr. Gwynn’s primary nurse during his stay at the hospital. Perhaps he mentioned something of his final destination after Ellis?”

“I was not his only nurse. And I’m not at liberty to discuss a patient’s personal matters.”

“Of course. Of course you aren’t.” Chester Hartwell turned to Mrs. Meade. “Thank you for your help, Nurse.” His tone was politely dismissive. Mrs. Meade hesitated for a few moments before turning away from us. Chester Hartwell took my arm as though directing me to a dance floor. He stopped at a quieter spot a few yards away. I lifted my arm out of his hand.

“My employer is most anxious to find Mr. Gwynn, Miss Wood. And he’s authorized me to spare no expense in locating him. It’s quite important.”

A second line of sweat formed beneath the first. Warning bells sounded in my head. “Your employer.”

“Yes. Angus Ravenhouse.”

I swallowed hard and Hartwell did not miss it. He cocked his head, filing away my unspoken response to that name.

“It’s very important that I find him.”

“Then you’d best be on your way so that you can continue your search. Mr. Gwynn is no longer a patient here.”

He looked down at me with keen discernment, as a shrewd father might gaze upon a lying child. It was as if he could read my thoughts, could see into my mind that Andrew Gwynn had been more to me than just another patient. “You don’t know what Mr. Gwynn did, do you? Or perhaps you do?”

“I must get back to my post. Good day, Mr. Hartwell,” I sputtered, barely able to speak the words. I started to move away but he stretched out his arm and blocked me.

“Mr. Gwynn and Lily Ravenhouse were in a scheme together. Lily was Mr. Ravenhouse’s wife. Did you know she was already married? Did you know that?”

I pushed past his arm and he grabbed my elbow.

“What they did was illegal. If you’re protecting him, you’re in it as much as he is, Miss Wood. And I can tell you, a man who would do what he’s done is not worth going to jail for. He’s not worth it.”

He’s not worth it
.

“He probably killed Lily, you know.”

He’s not worth it.

The echoed words spun in my head. Nausea coupled with the sweat on my brow made the room teeter.

“I can tell you’re not being truthful with me, Miss Wood. And I assure you he is not a man you can trust. He killed her, no doubt. He’ll likely kill you when he’s done with you.”

“Let go of me.” I yanked my arm free. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The paternal demeanor fell away and was instantly replaced by razor-sharp determination. Hartwell’s cold stare nearly stung. “Andrew Gwynn didn’t just steal a man’s wife. He stole a necklace worth fifty thousand pounds that has been in the Ravenhouse family for a century. Mr. Ravenhouse wants it back.”

I didn’t believe him. Not for a minute. If a necklace was missing I was certain Lily had taken it.

And if she had it with her when she crossed the Atlantic then it had been incinerated along with the rest of her things. The knowledge made me shudder. Hartwell didn’t fail to see this, either.

“He didn’t tell you about the necklace, did he?”

“There is no necklace.” The instant I said it I wished I hadn’t. It was akin to saying I knew much more than I was letting on.

Hartwell smiled—not the evil grin of a crocodile, but of a man who had played a risky hand and won it.

“Oh, but there is, Miss Wood.”

“Lily Ravenhouse died of scarlet fever aboard ship, and her belongings, including whatever she brought with her from England, were incinerated upon its arrival.” Again, I felt I had said too much. His smile deepened, and the paternal tone returned.

“Miss Wood, I must warn you that men like Andrew Gwynn, who carry off rich, married women within days of meeting them, have only one goal in mind. If you know where Mr. Gwynn went after he left here, you must think about the next vulnerable woman he will meet. And you must think of yourself. The more you know, the more of a liability you are to him.”

My mind began to spin in a thousand directions. I needed to get away. I needed to talk to Andrew before Hartwell got to him. If Chester Hartwell had been able to discover with whom Lily Ravenhouse had traveled to America, then how long would it take him to find out Andrew Gwynn was a tailor headed for his brother’s shop in Manhattan? Hartwell would confront Andrew the way he had confronted me, and Andrew would then find out in the worst possible way what Lily had done to him.