Angelology(28)

“The fire of I944,” Verlaine said.

Evangeline raised an eyebrow. “You know about the fire?”

“It’s the reason these drawings were taken out of the convent. I found them buried in a repository of

old building plans. St. Rose Convent was approved for a building permit in February 1944.”

“You were allowed to take these plans from a public-records repository?”

“Borrow them,” Verlaine said, sheepish. Pressing the seal with the edge of his fingernail so that a

slim crescent formed on the foil seal, he asked, “Do you know what this seal marks?”

Evangeline looked closely at the golden seal. It was positioned at the center of the Adoration

Chapel. “It is roughly where the altar is,” she said. “But it doesn’t seem exactly precise.”

She assessed Verlaine, scrutinizing him with renewed interest. Whereas she had initially thought

him little more than an opportunist come to pillage their library, she realized now that he had the

innocence and candor of a teenage boy on a treasure hunt. She could not fathom why this should make

her warm to him but it did.

She certainly did not intend to signal any such warmth to Verlaine. But he seemed less hesitant, as

if he’d detected a shift in her feelings. He was staring at her from behind the smudged lenses of his

glasses as if seeing her for the first time. “What is that?” he asked, without taking his eyes from her.

“What is what?”

“Your necklace,” he said, moving closer.

Evangeline pulled away, afraid that Verlaine might touch her, nearly knocking over a chair in the

process.

“I’m sorry,” Verlaine said. “It’s just that—”

“There is nothing more I can tell you, Mr. Verlaine,” she said, her voice cracking as she spoke.

“Hold on a second.” Verlaine riffled through the architectural drawings. Pulling a leaf from the

stack, he presented it to Evangeline. “I think your necklace has said it all.”

Evangeline took the paper and straightened it on the table before her. She found a brilliant likeness

of the Adoration Chapel, its altar, its statues, its octagonal shape rendered precisely as the original

she had seen each day for so many years. Affixed to the drawing, at the very center of the altar, there

was a golden seal.

“The lyre,” Verlaine said. “Do you see? It’s the same.”

Her fingers trembling, Evangeline unfastened the pendant from about her neck and placed it

carefully on the paper, the golden chain trailing behind it like the glimmering tail of a meteor. Her

mother’s necklace was the twin of the golden seal.

From her pocket Evangeline removed the letter she had found in the archives, the 1943 missive

from Abigail Rockefeller to Mother Innocenta, and placed it on the table. She did not understand the

connection between the seal and the necklace, and the chance that Verlaine might know suddenly

made her anxious to share her discovery with him.

“What’s this?” Verlaine asked, picking it up.

“Perhaps you can tell me.”

But as Verlaine opened the crinkled paper and scanned the lines of the letter, Evangeline suddenly

doubted herself. Recalling Sister Philomena’s warning, she wondered if perhaps she truly was

betraying her order by sharing such a document with an outsider. She had the sinking feeling that she

was making a grave mistake. Yet, she merely watched him with growing anticipation as he read the

paper.

“This letter confirms the relationship between Innocenta and Abigail Rockefeller,” Verlaine said at

last. “Where did you find it?”

“I spent some time in the archive this morning after I read your request. There was no doubt in my

mind that you were wrong about Mother Innocenta. I was certain that no such connection existed. I

doubted that there would be anything at all relating to a secular woman like Mrs. Rockefeller in our

archives, let alone a document that confirmed the correspondence—it is simply extraordinary that

physical evidence would remain. In fact, I went into the archive to prove that you were wrong.”

Verlaine’s gaze remained fixed upon the letter, and Evangeline wondered if he’d heard a word

she’d said. Finally he took a scrap of paper from his pocket and wrote his telephone number on it.

“You said you found only one letter from Abigail Rockefeller?”

“Yes,” Evangeline said. “The letter you just read.”

“And yet all of the letters from Innocenta to Abigail Rockefeller were responses. That means there

are three, perhaps four, Rockefeller letters somewhere in your archive.”

“You honestly believe we could have overlooked such letters?”