The Forgotten Room (18 page)

“All very much appreciated, I assure you.”

“I really don't think you should be standing . . .”

“Are you going to let me finish?”

The words were spoken very close to my ear, and when I turned I found those fascinating eyes watching me closely. “Finish what?” I asked, forcing myself to remain upright instead of leaning toward him.

“Your sketch. It's not quite done. I've been working on it from memory, but I really need you to sit for me so I can finish. There's something about your eyes . . .”

I reached past him and yanked open the door of a towering armoire, its mahogany finish cloudy with dust, glad for the coughs the movement generated. Anything was better than continuing this conversation. He'd already sketched me while I slept.
While I slept.
The only thing more intimate would be for me to be aware of him as he sketched me, to allow our eyes to meet for long periods.

I coughed again, then jerked open the second door. “I've been dying to see what was in here. When I first moved up to the attic, I was going to use it to store my clothes, but it was so jam-packed that I realized it would take too much time.” Blindly, I reached inside, grabbed an armful of material, and lifted the garments from the hanging rack.

“These aren't heavy,” I said behind a pile of crinolines and lace. “If you could just place them on the floor by the door, I'll bring them downstairs and have the nurses sort through everything to see if there's anything salvageable, and the rest goes to the ragman.”

He lifted the load from my arms while I turned back for another handful until the armoire was empty. “Thanks for your help,” I said, swiping my hands together. I closed one door and, while reaching for the other, looked at the floor of the piece of furniture, where a crumpled pile of yellowed satin lay in a heap. “Hang on. We have one more.”

I lifted the errant garment in my hand, the smell of dust and age wafting past me, and heard myself sigh. It was a ball gown of the softest cream-colored satin, with tiny handcrafted rosettes along the neckline, the skirt gathered in waves of satin into a small train at the rear,
where tiny buttons lined up the back from the top to the bottom of the bodice. The waist was tiny, possibly made tinier by the strategic use of a corset, with a delicate embroidery of roses in the palest pink, almost too faint to see, splashed all over the gown.

“What have we here?” Cooper asked, taking the gown from me and holding it up so I could get a better look at it.

“I would say a wedding gown, except I don't think it was ever a true white. Maybe a gown for a very special occasion.” I leaned forward, examining a dark stain of brownish red on the front bodice. It was a garish blemish on the pale satin, like a scar. “Possibly worn only once because of a wine spill. What a shame.”

“Should I put this in a pile for you?”

I actually thought about it for a moment before shaking my head. “No. I have no use for it, and certainly no place to put it. But it is lovely, isn't it?”

He'd taken two steps toward the pile before he stopped. “There's an embroidered label inside.” He fumbled for a moment with the collar, bringing it closer to his face. “It says, ‘Made Expressly for Prunella J. Pratt.'”

“Prunella?” I said, the name jarring.

“Not the most attractive of names; that's for sure. It's a good thing she was wealthy. I've found that people will overlook a lot if one has money.”

I barely heard him, my brain too busy racing. “That's odd,” I said. “It
is
an unusual name, yet when I was growing up I remember having an Aunt Prunella. I don't know what her exact relationship was—she could have been a great-aunt or something—but I called her Aunt Prunella. I don't recall if her last name was Pratt—it wasn't something I ever thought to ask. She seemed ancient even back then to my four-year-old self and smelled like mothballs. My parents would take me for
an obligatory Sunday afternoon visit and I'd have to kiss her cheek and then sit still for a whole hour gnawing on stale cookies and listening to her talk about how wonderful her life had once been, and how many times she appeared in the society pages labeled as a ‘great beauty.' She had a scrapbook she'd always bring out just to prove to us that she was telling the truth. And my parents usually brought her a check. She must have always been asking for money, because I remember that part very clearly.”

I paused, the memory not wholly unwelcome. My father and mother had both been alive then, and if the weather was nice, on the way home we'd walk through the park and my father would buy me an ice-cream cone. And when I was very small, he'd lift me up on his shoulders for the last block, pretending to stagger under my weight.

I slammed the armoire door shut. “We stopped visiting her when my father died—I always got the sense that we did so only out of my father's sense of duty, and my mother saw no sense in extending the misery after his death. I have no idea if Aunt Prunella is even still alive.”

“She sounds delightful,” he said, the laughter in his eyes again.

I looked down at my watch. “I really need to get started on rounds . . .”

“What's this?” he asked as he pushed aside a hanging rack of more garments, these draped with an old sheet. But the object he'd focused his attention on was hiding behind it—a short and squat Chinese chest with two drawers, its ornate mother-of-pearl design nearly obliterated by what appeared to be splattered paint. Each drawer had a lock, but no key.

“I really should go downstairs now,” I said, my voice sounding halfhearted even to me.

“Or I could open this top drawer,” Cooper said as he tugged on the ornate drawer pull and it slid open as far as it would go.

“It's sketches,” I said with surprise. Of anything I anticipated being inside the drawers, that wouldn't have been it.

Cooper reached in and took out a small pile of various-sized papers, then began slowly flipping through them, showing them to me before moving on to the next.

“They're sketches of this room,” I said. “Before it became a storeroom.”

Cooper pointed at one of the far wall where the tall blacked-out windows with fanlights sat recessed within the brick walls and under elaborate gilded keystones. “And before there were dimouts in the city.”

Each sketch was a detailed analysis of various parts of the room—the brick fireplace with the painted medallions over the mantel, the delicate scrolls of the ornate ceiling, the domed skylight that magnified the sun, shooting prisms of light throughout the room. I stared at the last one for a long moment while I searched for my voice. “It's exactly what I thought it would look like. Before they painted it black.”

He was quiet for a moment. “They look . . . familiar somehow. Like I've seen them before, or at least the artist's work. Look,” he said, tapping the bottom right corner of the top sketch. “They're all signed.”

The signature was tiny, making me squint as I tried to read it. “I think it says Harry Pratt,” I said, handing it back to Cooper.

“Harry Pratt,” he said slowly. “I'm pretty sure I don't know his work. Most likely some relation to Prunella Pratt, who owned the dress. He's quite good, whoever he is. Or was.” His glance fell to the second drawer. “Would you like to do the honors?”

With my rounds having been completely forgotten, I knelt in front of the chest and pulled, but nothing happened.

“Is it locked?” Cooper asked.

I shook my head. “No. It looks like something's stuck. It might be a sketch, and I'm afraid that if I pull on it, it might get damaged.”

I stood back and allowed Cooper to take a look. “I think you're
right.” He began tipping the chest forward to study its back, and then tilted it on its side to look beneath it. “If you can get me some kind of chisel, a hammer and a screwdriver, I should probably be able to take it apart without damaging anything inside.”

I was about to remind him that he was a patient when we both heard the unmistakable clicking of high-heeled shoes in the corridor outside. Cooper limped back to his bed as quickly as possible, and I followed him, not really sure why I felt like we'd been caught doing something wrong.

He slid beneath the sheets and as I leaned forward to tuck the blankets beneath the mattress, I felt the ruby slowly slide from its hiding place. I stood quickly, hoping to tuck it back inside my dress before he noticed. His hand grabbed my wrist, his eyes meeting mine.

The door flew open. “Well, isn't this cozy?” Caroline Middleton stood near the pile of discarded clothes, the light from the hallway behind her outlining her form like a halo.

Cooper dropped his hand as I straightened, tucking the necklace back into my dress. “Good morning, Miss Middleton. I'm happy to report that Captain Ravenel is making wonderful progress. I expect that we will be able to release him in no more than two weeks.”

I stepped away from the bed, feeling his eyes on me but knowing that looking back would mean acknowledging that he'd seen the ruby. That there was a connection between us, a connection I couldn't begin to understand.

I busily tidied the bedside table as I prepared to leave. “It's a little early for visiting hours. Perhaps you'd like to come back later?”

Caroline's lips curved upward. “Dr. Greeley told me that I could come at any time. And because those awful sirens woke me up at such an ungodly hour, I thought I'd just come straight here to see Cooper.”

I used my foot to slide the pile of clothes out of the way and against
the wall, then stepped past her. “Well, then, I see Captain Ravenel's in good hands, so I'll leave you. If you'd like coffee, there's usually a fresh pot at the nurses' station on the first floor. And it's the real thing, too. New York City managed to get an exemption on a few rationed items, thanks to the Society of Restaurateurs. Being that we're a military and war production area, and all. But it's still in limited supply, so go easy on it.”

Caroline sat down in the chair by the bed and slowly slid off her gloves. “Oh, just one cup should do me. I like mine black with two sugars.”

I paused in the threshold just for a moment, then turned back to her with a wide smile. “So do I,” I said, before quickly heading down the corridor toward the stairs, listening to Cooper's laughter echoing off the plaster walls.

C
HRISTMAS
E
VE 1892

Olive

The fire in the grate was already lit, and the room radiated a homely warmth. Harry released her hand—they had raced up the stairs together like guilty lovers, Harry's fingers wound so tightly around hers that she could hardly breathe—and closed the door behind them.

“This had better be quick,” Olive said. “I've got to be in bed by eleven for Mrs. Keane's inspection. And if she catches me stealing down the stairs . . .” She let her words trail away, because she couldn't quite say what the consequence of this malfeasance might be (too horrible to contemplate—immediate dismissal without reference, possibly a public flogging) and because Harry was hurrying across the room to the squat old Chinese cabinet by the wall, and why on earth would he be doing that?

A surprise, he'd said. Well, she couldn't help but flutter a bit, could she? She was human.

“Don't worry about Mrs. Keane,” Harry was saying, as he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the bottom drawer of the cabinet.
“I've already set her up with a bottle of Christmas brandy and an entire mince pie all to herself. With my grateful thanks for a year of service, of course.”

Olive tried to imagine Mrs. Keane drinking a glass of brandy. “And she accepted it?”

“She's always had a soft spot for me. God knows why.” Harry rose from the cabinet and turned, smiling his brilliant smile.

“You know very well why.”

“Well, I shared the first glass with her, just to get her started, and I can promise you she won't be in any condition to make an inspection this evening.” He saluted. “You are hereby dismissed from your duties, Miss Olive, and have only yourself to please.”

“Until five o'clock tomorrow morning.”

For a moment, he was silent, and a little of the smile faded from his mouth. He still stood before the cabinet, holding something in both hands behind his back. “Are you really up so
very
early?” he said at last.

“Didn't you know?”

“I didn't think five o'clock. And I've made you stay up so late.”

“It was worth it.”

“Was it?”

She dropped her gaze to the worn Oriental rug. “You know it was.”

The floorboards creaked as he stepped toward her. She counted each one, because they belonged to Harry, because the floorboards were so lucky to bear the touch of Harry's feet. Her hands twisted together atop the wilting white face of her pinafore apron. When he stopped before her, she admired the curve of his shoes.

“I have something for you. But you're going to have to look up first.”

Olive looked up slowly, but only as far as his hands, which now held a small framed miniature portrait.

“I painted it from the sketches. It's the best one yet. I think I'm finally getting it right. Getting
you
right, I mean. The lines of your face
and figure, the pose, the way your nightgown drapes against your skin, although of course it's not a nightgown here, it's more like a—a medieval garment that— Anyway, do you like it?”

Her gaze darted upward to Harry's face, because he was
nervous
; he was actually babbling like a schoolboy. His brows slanted upward, anxious for her approval.

She looked back down at the miniature and took it from his fingers. “It's wonderful. It's like magic. It's not even me.”

“It's yours.”

“I can't take this. You need it for your painting.”

“I'll make another. I want you to keep this. I want you to keep this in your trunk in your awful grubby room in the nunnery, and to take it out every night when I'm gone and look at it and say,
Harry loves me, Harry's coming back in June to take me away to Europe, Harry's going to make up for all this work and misery and make me as happy as a man ever made a woman.
”

Olive stepped back.
“What?”

He caught her hand. “Listen to me, Olive. I'll be twenty-two in April, and I'm coming into a little money then, a tidy little nest egg my grandmother left me. It's not a fortune, but it's a start. Right after graduation, I'm taking you away from here—”

“But you can't!”

“Yes, I can.” He kissed her hand and went down on his knees, pulling her to the floor with him. “I can't stand watching you in your uniform, working the way you do, serving us like this. We should be serving you. The way Prunella sneers at you—”

“She
sneers
at me?”

“When you're not looking. That's just the way she is. She's jealous of anyone who's prettier than she is, and she's seen me looking at you—”

“Oh, no!” Olive put her face in her hands, but Harry pulled the fingers gently away and tilted up her chin.

“Because she knows you're her superior, Olive. She knows I love you.” He placed his palms on her cheeks. “I love you, Olive. What do you think of that? I'm taking you away with me. It's going to be the biggest scandal. We're going to live in Europe together, and we'll be the happiest two people on the face of the earth, the king and queen of happiness.”

“I can't,” she whispered. “Don't be silly. I'm just a—just a housemaid. You're Harry Pratt—you have your future before you—”

He was shaking his head. “No, I'm not Harry Pratt. Not
that
Harry Pratt, the fellow who swans about Manhattan, pretending to be what people expect of him. The college boy, the ladies' man, ready to follow his father onto Wall Street and marry some heiress and own a big fat mansion uptown filled with ten kids and a safe-deposit box filled with railway shares. Old drawings packed away in a crate somewhere. That's not me. I want to
paint
, Olive. I want to paint for a living; I want to paint for life. I want to live with you in an attic in Florence and paint all night until I make something real, something almost perfect, and then tramp through the hills with you and lie naked in the vineyards. I want to see your face every morning and draw your face every day. I want to see the sunshine on your skin. Now, that's what I call a grand future.”

“You don't know what you're saying.”

“Oh, I know what I'm saying, all right. I've been thinking about it every second. I can't imagine living without you. I want to know every inch of you and give you every inch of me, if you'll have it. The real me, the Harry that's hidden beneath all the shirtfronts and the dinner
jackets.” He leaned forward, and his lips touched the tip of her nose. “You're about the only one who's ever met him, I think.”

“I'm just a passing fancy. You'll go back to Harvard and forget me by February.”

“You know that's not true. It would be like forgetting my own arm.” He kissed her nose again, a little longer, a little more tenderly. “Forgetting my own heart.”

“Stop.” His breath was sweet on her face, brandy and mincemeat and adoration. “You promised not to—not to—”
Not to touch me. Not to kiss me.
Not to do
this
, the one thing she couldn't afford. The final line she couldn't possibly cross.

Unless she did.

He pulled away a few inches, and his smile and his blue eyes came into shining focus. He pointed to the tin ceiling above them.

“It's Christmas, Olive. Look up.”

She looked up and up, into the skylight that showed the black Christmas night and the tiny bright stars, and the little sprig of green that hung with painstaking care in the exact center, several feet above.

“You're a devious man, Harry Pratt.”

“When I have to be.”

He brushed his thumbs against her cheekbones. “I've been plotting all day. The mistletoe. The miniature. The darned brandy and mince pie—and she takes a lot of buttering up, that Mrs. Keane, you know, and for a moment there I thought she'd never give in—and then tracking you down before it was too late.”

“Just for a kiss?”

“Just one little kiss, Olive. A tiny Christmas miracle. What do you say?”

Olive had never kissed anyone on the lips. Her heart was striking her ribs, maybe twice every second, panicked and thrilled. Her fingers
were cold. She thought,
If he tastes like he smells, it can't be so bad.
Brandy and mincemeat and adoration.

“Well, Olive? Kiss me?”

She placed one brave hand against his shirtfront.

“I guess you've earned it,” she whispered, and his lips sank against hers, so much softer than she had imagined.

Olive wasn't an only child, but her two brothers and a sister had all died before her. The usual scourges of childhood, and a little bad luck besides. Arabella, her sister, had had a weak heart, and it gave out during a scarlet fever epidemic when Olive was three. Olive had woken up one morning and found herself alone, and ever since—because she had been almost too small to remember Arabella at all, really, except as a kind of shadow, smelling of sugar cookies—ever since, she had always wondered what it would be like to have siblings. To have someone to share your troubles, to have someone who knew you intimately. You would quarrel and make up, and you would lie side by side on the attic floor on rainy days, sharing your dreams, sharing the silent space between them. And the missing piece of your heart—Olive had imagined it so many times—would simply fall into place, making you whole.

Well, maybe she'd had it all wrong about siblings, but lying on the cushions with Harry seemed a lot like she used to imagine, except more: more pulse, more life, more fullness in your chest until you almost couldn't breathe, this beautiful warm
burstiness
that crowded everything else out. Her lips still tingled from his kisses, and her right
hand was tucked in his left. His jacket had been tossed on the floor somewhere, and his waistcoat lay open, and it was all so natural and perfect, so exactly as they were meant to be.

Except they were not. Except there was that portfolio downstairs, marked
VAN ALAN
.

But she pushed the portfolio away, because it was Christmas, and because she could still taste Harry's kisses and smell Harry's breath, and the warmth of Harry's shoulder merged into hers.

“We'll be like two new people,” he was saying. “The real Harry and the real Olive. I can just see us, waking up in the sunshine. Not having to pretend anymore, not having to be nice to people you despise. There's this fellow I know there, an old professor who moved to Fiesole last year. He'll help us get started, I'm sure.”

“It sounds wonderful,” said Olive, wondering what Fiesole was.

Harry turned his head. “Does it, Olive? Do you really want it? Not just because I do, I mean, but because you want it for yourself.”

“I do. I do want it.” It was the truth. She thought about lying next to Harry's warm body in a sunlit Italian attic, and her whole chest ached, her limbs pulled with longing. And then her practical mind whispered:
What about marriage? What about children?
He hadn't mentioned those. But children would surely follow, wouldn't they, and how would Harry feel about a squalling baby interrupting his artistic paradise? Would he still admire his darling nymph when her belly was swollen with child?

But that was why she loved him, wasn't it? His dreams, his beautiful ideals, soaring so far away from what was real and possible. If she tried, she could hold him carefully moored to earth, just close enough that he didn't fly away entirely. She squeezed his hand and said again: “I do want it. I want it so much, Harry.”

He lifted himself up on his elbow and grinned down at her. “Take off your clothes.”

“What?”
(For the second time that evening.)

“I'm going to draw you, right now.”

“In the—in the—” She couldn't say
nude
.

“Yes, all bare and true. With a sheet draped over you, of course.” Harry sprang to his feet. “Go on. I'll avert my eyes, I promise. For now, anyway.”