Chapter 22
“Wait!” shouted Adam.
Furiously wiping away tears, Cathy urged her companions to make haste loading the buggy while she quickly changed her clothes behind a clump of bushes. “I can’t bear to spend another moment with that arrogant libertine!”
“I tried to warn you,” said Hermione as she assisted with the buttons up the back of her daughter’s shirtwaist.
Before Cathy could reply, her husband was standing in front of them. “Do me the courtesy of hearing what I have to say.”
“It’s too late.”
“It certainly is not too late!” He reached for her arm, and she pulled back as if he’d struck her. “I would have told you the truth long ago if there hadn’t been some happiness between us at Tempest Hall. But then, each time I was about to speak, I was afraid of cutting down our marriage when it was just beginning to blossom—”
“Very poetic,” she cut in angrily, “but insulting to my intelligence. You were afraid, all right, afraid of not having two women at once, afraid of looking foolish by getting divorced immediately after your wedding, and most of all afraid of losing my money!” She made the last thrust with relish and watched him absorb the blow.
“If you would just listen to me,” he said through gritted teeth. “Could we have a moment’s privacy?”
“Certainly not. And you are the one who needs to listen. I now know that my own father kept a mistress, for years I imagine, and he lied to me every day. That is unforgiveable. And, I know that you have also led a double life— and, I suspect, still are!”
“You are wrong—” he protested.
“No more lies!” More tears spilled down her cheeks. “And no more secrets. Your secrets will poison all of us.”
Auggie listened in silence, and Theo looked torn as he loaded the buggy and helped the ladies to board. As Hermione passed Adam, she couldn’t resist delivering a few cuts of her own.
“I always knew you were a fraud, my lord. You’ll never amount to anything, and I hope my daughter has the courage to turn her back on this sham marriage and go back to Newport with me while she has the chance!” Then, holding down her Gainsborough hat in the wind, Hermione let Auggie help her into the buggy and glanced back at her son-in-law with a haughty sniff.
Fury welled inside him as he watched the horses start forward and turn away from the turquoise ocean. Unable to resist, Adam shouted, “I don’t blame Jules! Thirty years of marriage to you would be worse than a prison sentence at hard labor!”
Theo bit his lip trying not to smile, and he sensed that Cathy was not completely out of temper with her husband. Chin trembling, she stole a glance back at his solitary figure, then stared at her own lap.
“He can be difficult to resist,” Theo whispered kindly.
“Maybe, but I’m getting better at it.”
“Are you sure?” He slowed the horses as they came to a fork in the road, then turned north. “I think we ought to save Crowe’s Nest for another day. “
Suddenly, from the seat behind them, Hermione declared, “I have decided that the time has come to tell the full, sordid tale of your father’s disgrace. Auggie already knows, and I trust Mr. Harrismith to keep our family secret.”
Theo shot Cathy a nervous glance. “If you’d rather wait—”
“No, I have kept his secrets too long! Besides, out here I won’t have to worry about eavesdropping servants.”
With a heavy sigh, Cathy turned halfway to look at her mother. “I don’t know how much more I can bear this afternoon. Can you condense this story?”
“I shall try.” She paused. “The woman is an actress, like Evelyn Nesbit. From New York.”
“An... actress!” This was beyond anything Cathy had imagined when she saw her father with his mistress on the street in New York. She had assumed she was a woman from his circle, perhaps even the widow of an old friend. The image of a woman like the famous and glamorous Evelyn Nesbit was too much to take in.
“Indeed,” Hermione confirmed acidly. “Her name is Mae Larkspur, and she is twenty-three years old. She has big blue eyes and curly yellow hair, and she is tall and exceedingly shapely.”
A wave of nausea rolled over Cathy, and she nearly asked Theo to stop the buggy. Turning in her seat, she met her mother’s eyes and saw anger and pain mixed together in them. Perhaps for the first time in her own life, Cathy’s heart truly went out to her.
“Are you certain about all of this?” she asked. “It just doesn’t sound at all like Papa! I mean, this Mae person is barely older than I am.” Another thought came to her. “Perhaps it’s just a brief flight of fancy, Mother. One hears of men, at Papa’s stage of life, who go a bit mad and then it passes...”
“It’s been going on for months,” Hermione replied flatly. “Even before we moved into Beechcliff, he was involved with that floozy. I toiled to make that house into a showplace Jules could be proud of, and I stayed behind week after week in Newport while he returned to New York to work. Little did I imagine that, while I was choosing fabric for the draperies, my husband was carousing in dance halls with an actress!”
“How did you find out? Did someone tell you? Did you see them together?”
She turned her face away, staring at a passing row of coconut palms. “I suppose his friends knew, but no one told me. I didn’t have any idea until after your wedding, when he came to me and told me about her and said he wanted a divorce.”
Cathy reached back for her mother’s hand and held it fast, overcome with sympathy. How could she have misjudged her own dear father so completely? Were all men handicapped when it came to fidelity and honor?
The journey back to Tempest Hall was broken only by a stop at Farley Hall for poinsettias. The red-flowered bushes grew profusely all around the once-opulent manor house that now stood empty. In the back of the buggy, Theo found a shovel, which he used to dig up a dozen poinsettias.
“These ought to cheer you up a bit on Christmas, hmm?” He gave Cathy a grin. “What do you think of this mansion? You couldn’t imagine the parties that were held here years ago, when I was just a sprig. Unfortunately, the owner, Sir Graham Briggs, died some years ago, and it turned out that he was stony broke. His widow had an incredible estate sale before she left Barbados, and my mother brought me along. We bought an entire Crown Derby dinner service for just two guineas!”
Cathy smiled, thinking that Theo had found the perfect line of work at the Ocean Breeze Hotel. “We’ll certainly enjoy the poinsettias. If not for you, my friend, we might have overlooked Christmas entirely.”
They weren’t far from Tempest Hall, and before long the buggy was drawing up under the sandbox tree. Simon came out of the stables to greet them and unhitch the horses as the little quartet disembarked. Theo bade the others goodbye, lingering to show Simon the poinsettias.
“Could you put these in pots for Lady Raveneau? Perhaps you could find a bit of red ribbon to decorate them for Christmas.”
“If dey make Mistress smile, I do it gladly.”
Halfway to the house, Cathy turned back to wave goodbye to Theo and to smile at Simon, who seemed to blush in response. It was a bittersweet moment as she thought of the people she’d come to care for on the island. It wasn’t a perfect life, by any means, but in just a few weeks she felt far more connected to this world than she had to Newport.
“I’m so glad that you have seen the light and will be coming home with us, Catherine,” her mother was saying as they entered the back stairhall. “It takes a mature person to admit she’s made a mistake, I’ll give you that. Only think how lovely it will be to leave this hovel and return to the life of privilege you deserve—”
“I don’t know that I am going back with you, Mother,” she broke in softly. “And I haven’t the strength to argue about it now. Let’s leave the subject of my future alone until after Christmas, all right?”
Hermione pretended as if nothing at all had been said. “Where are your so-called servants? I would have expected them to have tea prepared for us. That cook of yours is very nearly worthless! She wouldn’t last a day at Beechcliff.” And, wheeling around, she went off to look for Josephine.
Starting up the stairs, Cathy heard the sound of muted voices in the library. If Adam were in there, engaged in conversation, she could slip into their cramped little temporary bedroom and wash her face. Perhaps there would even be time for a few minutes of rest.
In the library, August Randolph Chase III stood near Adam’s desk while Liza, the new maid, swiped at the furniture with a feather duster.
“Sir, may I ask you an important question?” she whispered.
“Why, certainly.”
“Do you want Lord and Lady Raveneau’s marriage to be a success?”
“Hmm?” He cocked his angular head in surprise. “Oh, well, if you put it that way, I suppose I would have to say ‘no.’ But what can I do about it? Her ladyship won’t even listen to her own mother.”
“You could talk to my mistress,” she suggested, dusting faster.
“What do you mean? Lady Raveneau is your mistress.”