Bees in the Butterfly Garden (4 page)

4

A lady in the company of strangers while traveling will not be considered unrefined should she partake of polite, though guarded, conversations.

Madame Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies

Meg stared out the window of the train car, ignoring again the emptiness of her stomach and the heaviness of her heart. She wished she’d paid more attention the last time she had taken this train route. All she’d noticed was the river, how it widened and twisted, how the trees grew alongside. The outings she’d enjoyed with other students had taken her only as far as Hastings, some twenty miles outside the city. Up to that point, she did recall a few things, like Tubby Hook being Inwood’s old name and some of the history associated with Fort Washington. And Yonkers, where one of her former schoolmates had said her family owned a summerhouse.

Soon Meg would reach her destination—although once there, she had no idea what she would do. She supposed the length of her stay would depend on what she found at her father’s home. During the past four years, she’d accepted her fate, knowing her past, present, and future were bound up in the school. But the farther the train took her, the more she felt like that fourteen-year-old girl again, the one she’d banished so many times in the last few years.

A rattle at the train vestibule door drew her notice. A man walked the aisle slowly, so slowly that Meg’s eye wasn’t the only one drawn to him. He looked at each passenger as if to catch their attention like some kind of friendly host: nodding, occasionally greeting some, winking at the child two seats in front of Meg. She turned her gaze back out the window, but when he neared her seat, he paused altogether.

“Good afternoon, miss.”

Meg nodded with the barest of glances. She’d never minded speaking to strangers with a gaggle of girls behind her, but alone—and to a man, even one nearly her father’s age—wasn’t at all proper.

The man did not move on. He was garishly dressed, with a jacket so purple no gentleman ever would have chosen it. And the hat! A British pith helmet, as if he’d just gotten off a sailing ship from some faraway colony.

To her dismay he steadied himself by grabbing the back of the seat in front of her. “You going far up the line, miss?”

Without answering, she softened her rudeness by issuing the tightest of smiles. If he were any kind of gentleman, he would receive the message to leave her alone. Of course, if he were any kind of gentleman, he wouldn’t have spoken to her in the first place. Why hadn’t she spent the extra money for a seat in first class, where other passengers could not wander in?

A conductor entered, announcing the next stop at Tarrytown. The man lingering by Meg’s seat had to step aside to let the conductor through, but instead of moving on, the older man took the seat on the other side of the aisle, directly across from Meg.

“Sing Sing’s next, you know. Ever been there?”

Meg lifted her chin, still staring out the window.

“The city gets their ice from Rockland Lake. Nice, fresh.” He mimicked a shiver as preamble to his next word. “Cold.”

She chanced a glance around them, wondering if someone else might engage the man instead. But the mother and child traveling together were silent, and so was the couple sitting in front of him. She knew there were others behind her, but no one responded. They must all have known, like she did, whose interest he wanted.

Rather than looking out the window on his own side of the car, he stared beyond Meg at the landscape on her side. “Lots of quarries along here. Yes, indeed. Enough to build an entire prison at Sing Sing. Five stories high, one thousand cells. Built by inmates, you know.”

That, evidently, piqued the interest of the gentleman in front of the man speaking.

“Do you work for the railroad?” He threw the inquiry over the back of his seat.

The man laughed. “No, sir; no, I don’t.”

“You sound like a travel guide, that’s all.”

“Well, I could tell you a thing or two about the places we’ve passed, that’s for sure.”

He prattled on, talking mostly about Sing Sing. Meg couldn’t help but listen, even if she’d wished otherwise. There was no other noise in the train car, and she hadn’t thought to bring a book for diversion. By the time the track entered the tunnels beneath the prison’s yard, she, along with anyone else who might never have traveled this far on the line before, knew what to expect.

The travelogue continued as the man talked about the aqueduct at Croton, but it was the name that piqued Meg’s interest. Croton . . . she wanted the stop after that one.

Despite her best effort at cool confidence, when the conductor announced Peekskill, Meg’s pulse fluttered with excitement. She was almost there, where her father never wanted her to visit.

Without looking at the man who’d shared so much information about the route, Meg found her way to the vestibule. But as she waited for the conductor to open the door and lay out the step, the very man she’d been ignoring stepped past her and offered a hand down to the platform.

“Thank you,” she said but neither took his hand nor looked his way. Between her own stiff limbs from sitting still so long and an effort to avoid him, she nearly stumbled—yet that was preferable to sending a message she had no wish to issue. She gripped her bag and reticule, confident she could take care of herself.

Meg walked toward the station office to inquire about hiring a driver to take her to the address she’d been given.

“Going to the Davenport funeral?”

Meg nodded at the man emerging from the ticket office; he wore a sturdy cloth apron and a leather visor, which he tipped her way.

“Needn’t hire a driver, miss.” He pointed to the end of the platform. “See there? A carriage is just around the corner, here at every arrival from the city and meets every departure back. They’ll see you safely on your way, and without charge.”

Meg followed his gaze, spotting a matched pair of horses that were no doubt hooked to a carriage behind them.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Anything else I can help you with? Carry your bag for you?”

“No thank you.”

“My condolences, miss.” Then he turned to greet others from the train.

Meg stepped forward in time to fall in line with the talkative man in purple. Only now he was strangely quiet, walking beside a stout man even older than he. The other man was dressed finely from a silk-ribboned top hat to white spats on his dark leather shoes, carrying a shiny black walking stick in his gloved hands.

By the time they all stopped beside the waiting carriage, Meg’s heart settled somewhere around her waist. It was obvious they were headed in the same direction, and she could avoid looking at them no longer.

“Good day,” she said.

The talkative man removed his pith helmet, then bowed, revealing a balding head. He nudged the older man at his side. “Didn’t I tell you, Brewster?”

The man he’d addressed as Brewster looked mildly perturbed—though not surprised—at the elbow the other had used. He tipped his own hat Meg’s way. “Will you be accompanying us to the Davenport wake, miss?”

She reluctantly raised her gaze to meet the inquiry, only to see his eyes momentarily widen.

“You needn’t answer, my dear,” the older man said softly. “Surely you must be his daughter. I’d begun to believe you were nothing more than a figment of John Davenport’s renowned imagination, but now I see it’s true.”

“Just as I told him.” The purple-decked man winked. “I spotted you right off, which is why I kept an eye on you on the train. We knew your father.” He put a hand over his heart. “Loved him like a brother.”

Meg shifted the grip on her bag’s latch from one hand to two, so neither hand would tremble and she would not have to offer the contact of a handshake. “You knew my father well, then?”

“Of course,” Brewster said. “He was one of my closest advisers.”

“Take your bag, miss?”

Meg started at the question, issued from so close by. She hadn’t seen the driver alight from the box seat atop the carriage to stand before her, palm outstretched. She handed him her bag, which he placed on the driver’s seat before offering to help her into the open-sided carriage. There was no need to pull out a step; the carriage was nearly level with the platform.

Meg settled herself inside, taking the side facing forward. It wasn’t long before they were all seated, the train now chugging away while the carriage driver urged the horses on in the opposite direction.

Brewster smiled from the seat directly across. “Permit me to formally introduce myself. My name is Alwinus Brewster, and it’s my great pleasure to meet you at last, Miss Meggie Davenport.”

The other held out his hand. “And I’m Jamie. Just that, just Jamie.”

She took his hand. “You were very . . . informative on the train.”

He nodded. “I try to make time go faster, and the only way I’ve ever done it is by talking. Have you ever tried it, miss? You were sure quiet on the train.”

“Pardon my companion, Miss Davenport.” She noticed Brewster shift the tip of his cane to place it on the other man’s foot. “Youth can no longer be his excuse, I’m afraid. He’s never been very bright.”

“He certainly knew a lot about the route.”

“Yes, he can memorize facts and dates, but when it comes to the subtleties of society, I’m afraid he’s at a distinct disadvantage. My apologies if he is disrespecting your grief. Such a shame about your dear father. We all thought him robust as a horse. But who can tell what havoc life causes a body? Particularly the life your father lived.”

She wanted to ask what he meant but knew she couldn’t. What kind of daughter didn’t know the havoc her father faced, if others such as this man knew? She wouldn’t have him thinking her lack of knowledge about John Davenport was her doing. The blame for that rested entirely upon her father.

“He did love the risks, didn’t he?” Jamie said. “I recall the time he placed five hundred dollars on a horse over at Jerome Park. Five hundred! But don’t you know, he won. Walked away with more money in his pocket that day than I’d made pinching in a year.”

He stopped abruptly, evidently because of the pressure put on his foot by Brewster’s cane.

Meg offered a tight smile and diverted her gaze from them both. While it might be admirable that Jamie pinched to save his money, she wondered if that was how her father amassed so much of his own. But in spite of the censuring thoughts she’d been thoroughly trained to have, a sudden and unbidden excitement erupted at the thought of gambling. What would it feel like to hand over five hundred—five
hundred
—dollars, just like that? And then to have a thousand, or even many times that, returned? What must it be like to have the freedom to do something so foolish and have it rewarded anyway?

She looked out the side of the carriage as they passed through the town of Peekskill, where a row of awnings shaded various businesses and restaurants. It wasn’t the money that seemed so appealing; rather it was the risk. What must taking such a risk feel like?

Habit told her to force such thoughts away. A person could hardly prevent thoughts introduced by others; it was what one did with such thoughts that proved to be improper or not. And dwelling on whatever exhilaration gambling might offer was decidedly not proper.

Mr. Brewster, opposite her, had stopped talking altogether yet kept the cane on his companion’s foot. He seemed to sense her lack of interest in conversation, but she knew he’d misunderstood the reason entirely. Let them think grief gave her leave for rudeness, when it was really no more than ignorance about her father and his life. Soon the only thing she heard inside the carriage was her own gurgling stomach.

Beyond the town, houses spread out to green landscape, and she soon realized how remote her father’s home must be. She refused to reveal either uncertainty or fear, even when it had been several long minutes since she’d seen a house or gate, and ruts and potholes began to pock the road.

When at last the carriage turned onto a private lane, dense trees on either side prevented much study of the land. She guessed only that the terrain led somewhat upward. Then the trees parted to a final curl in the lane, revealing the house at last. The mansard-style roof gave away the mansion’s age as neither new nor old. With its three-story size it could easily have earned a place along Fifth Avenue in New York, but because it was here—far more secluded than “cottages” in such places as Newport or even Yonkers—she wondered what her father had been thinking when he’d purchased it.

But mostly she wondered why he’d never wanted her here. Certainly there had been more than enough room for her.

Only one other carriage was visible in front of the prominent entryway. A laurel wreath hung on the front door, warning visitors death had come to this home. So it was the porch just to its left that seemed most inviting. Iron chairs, a table—and, just now, a cluster of people watching the carriage approach.

Meg wasn’t sure who spotted whom first. She wasn’t sure what drew her eye to him; he wasn’t much taller than any of the others, and his clothing unremarkable. A standard three-piece suit, dark as the occasion called for. Perhaps it was his hair: thick and black, neither straight nor curly but something in between, clean but not neat or oiled, and a bit too long.

He stepped off the porch to greet the carriage, and once his gaze met hers, it stayed. With eyes the exact color of blue she’d always preferred over the color she had: not the shallow, pale blue of morning sky, but rather that of a sunset, dark and endless, unfathomable.

Ian Maguire.

Immediately she wished she didn’t find him attractive; she knew the weakness a pleasing face could inspire in others and wanted no such thing to touch her, especially regarding him.

The carriage driver reached Meg before Maguire could, for which she was grateful. She knew he would have offered her a hand, and she wasn’t sure she would have taken it.

“Meggie!” The welcome in his voice told her he was oblivious to her stiffness. As soon as she reached the ground, he took both of her hands. His delight was clear, although on such an occasion she thought she wasn’t the only one who might think his happiness odd.