A bucket of ashes (9 page)

Mr. Mead snapped his notebook shut and returned it to his pocket. “At the risk of giving you false hope, Miss Sweeney, I must say I’m feeling quite optimistic. It helps that your husband is a convicted felon, whereas you are a young lady of sterling reputation with some of the most notable men in the commonwealth vouching for you. The only factor likely to drag things out would be Mr. Sweeney’s lack of cooperation. If you can manage to talk him into agreeing to the divorce, I think it’s possible you could be a free woman within a matter of weeks.”

She gaped at him. “Oh, my God. That would be... That would be wonderful.” But first she had to talk Duncan into agreeing to it, and that would be much easier said than done.

“I’ll go through the process with you in more depth tomorrow,” he told her, “and have you sign the papers and so forth. When would be the best time?”

Nell looked to Viola, who said, “August usually takes a nap in the early afternoon. We could meet in my sitting room at, say, two o’clock.”

“After I return to Boston,” Mead said, “I shall keep in touch. In the interest of discretion, I take it I should address any correspondence to you, Viola, rather than to Miss Sweeney?”

“Yes, do,” Viola said. “I’ll be making it a point to get to the mail before August does, in order to intercept any communications from Mr. Sweeney or Mr. Skinner, but one can’t be too careful. If August were to get wind of this, God knows how he would react.”

Oh,
thought Nell,
I have a pretty good idea.

*   *   *

“Dr. Greaves had to leave,” Martin told Nell as she wheeled his mother into the parlor. “I told him he’d be better off spending the night than driving home in the dark, but he said he had patients to see early tomorrow morning, and that he had a very good carriage lamp. He asked me to apologize on his behalf for not saying goodbye to you.”

Dismayed, Nell said, “How long ago did he leave?”

“Just now.”

Excusing herself, Nell lifted her skirts and sprinted through the house and out the front door. She saw a dark figure in a top hat walking away along the lamplit path that led to the carriage house. “Cyril!”

He turned, paused, and came back, removing the hat as he climbed the steps of the front porch, bathed in amber lamplight from a large open window into the great hall. “I’m sorry to have left without saying goodbye,” he said “but I have some early-morning—”

“I know. Martin told me. I just... I wanted to talk to you about what Cecilia said, about Will and I having been engaged.”

He dragged a hand through his hair. “Is Duncan... Did he die in prison?” he asked.

“No. No, he’s still alive. In fact, I’m petitioning for a divorce. That’s what Mr. Mead and Mrs. Hewitt and I were talking about just now. If I can get Duncan to agree to it, which I hope to God I can, Mr. Mead says the divorce might come through in just a few weeks.”

Cyril, looking baffled, said, “If you’ve been married all this time, how could you and William Hewitt have been engaged?”

“There
was
no engagement,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. It was all pretense, to provide a rationale for... the closeness of our friendship. Otherwise, we were afraid people would have thought I was his mistress.”

“You aren’t?”

The question took Nell aback for a moment, until she realized it wasn’t disrespect that had prompted it, but the natural curiosity of a man for whom she had once served in that very capacity. “No, I’m not, but people were starting to suspect that I was. It was generally assumed that
I
was the only reason he spent so much time with Gracie and me. I was part of the reason, but he also wanted to see Gracie.”

Cyril pondered that about for a second, and then a look of revelation came over his face. “Of course.
Of course.
I’d always wondered why a Brahmin matron would be so eager to adopt the child of a chambermaid.”

“Viola Hewitt is no ordinary Brahmin matron. She’s a born iconoclast. I’ve often thought she might have adopted Gracie even if Will hadn’t fathered her.”

Leaning on the stone balustrade, arms crossed, Cyril said, “Does Gracie know he’s her father?”

Nell shook her head. “He won’t let us tell her. He thinks it would just bring her misery.”

“Because she’s illegitimate? She’s too young to understand the concept, and by the time she’s old enough, she’ll almost certainly have figured it out herself. Most adopted children were born out of wedlock.”

“It’s not that. He thinks she’ll be ashamed that her father is...” Oh blast, why had she allowed the conversation veer down this particular path?

“A gambler and an opium smoker?”

“He doesn’t smoke it anymore,” she said quickly, hating the notion of Cyril viewing Will that way. “He hasn’t in two and a half years. Well, except for once, when he was... he’d just found out I was married, and that I’d kept it from him. He... he was upset.”
I thought you trusted me. I thought you knew me. I thought we were friends.
“And, um, he did it once in Shanghai a few months ago, but he was in a very melancholic frame of—”

“Shanghai?”

Nell just sighed. How could one rationalize Shanghai? There was no greater haven of sin in the world. “He really is through with opium,” she said, declining to mention that he’d weaned himself off it by injecting morphine, on which he’d been dependent for another half year.

“Nell, I wish I could share your confidence, but from what you’ve just told me, he doesn’t seem to be able to resist the lure of Morpheus for very long. Whenever he’s feeling out of sorts, he goes right back to it.”

“It doesn’t have its talons in him the way it used to,” she said. “When I first met Will, he was... ravaged. He’d had a miserable upbringing in England, after having been torn away from his mother a young age because Mr. Hewitt couldn’t deal with him. Andersonville was a nightmare. He saw his brother murdered, for which he blamed himself, and then he escaped after taking a bullet in the leg—but his parents were told he’d died of dysentery. He spent nine months making his way back North through enemy territory, using opium just so he could stay on his feet. After the war, he was alienated from his family, haunted by his memories, and still in constant pain. He literally didn’t care whether he lived or died. But that’s all changing. He’s a different man now. I can’t imagine him ever using opiates again.”

“I have no doubt he must be a good man at heart, to have earned your esteem, but from what I’ve been able to gather, he doesn’t seem to have changed as much as you would like to think. Men don’t go to Shanghai for cultural fulfillment, Nell, they go there to steep themselves in depravity. He won’t commit to Harvard, won’t commit to being a real father to Gracie...”

“It’s complicated,” she said. “
He’s
complicated.”

“So was Duncan.”

Appalled that he would make such a comparison, Nell said, “Will is nothing like Duncan—
nothing
.” Her hard tone of voice surprised her; she’d never once spoken in anger to Cyril Greaves.

Cyril looked surprised, too—and chastened. Pushing off the balustrade to take a step in her direction, he said, “Of course he isn’t. I had no business saying that. Please put it out of your mind.”

Nell nodded pensively.

She thought he would bid her goodnight then, but instead he said, a little hesitantly, “Viola... She took me aside before dinner. She’s worried about you, Nell. She said you became violently ill a few days ago, and she heard you being sick again yesterday. I told her I’d seen you growing faint. She has, too. She wants me to examine you.”

“I don’t need to be examined,” Nell said. “I’m not ill.”

“Just the heat, eh?”

“I’m fine, really. I’m sorry Viola has been fretting over me. The next time you’re here, please tell her there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“The next time? Does that mean you want me to come back?”

“Of course I do. I do, Cyril. I’m enjoying getting to know you again.”

“And I you. Well.” He put his hat back on. “I suppose I should be going. Goodnight, Nell.”

“Goodnight.”

He set out again for the carriage house, his shoes crunching on the gravel drive. A bit too shaky to go inside and face everyone quite yet, Nell sat on the stone bench beneath the window, hugged a little needlepoint pillow to her chest, and closed her eyes, listening to his footsteps retreat into the night.

When they were almost inaudible, they abruptly ceased. There was no sound at all for about a full minute, and then the crunching started again, growing louder this time as Cyril retraced his steps. He climbed back up onto the porch, took his hat off, and came to stand before her.

“I’d like you to marry me,” he said.

She stared at him.

“If and when your divorce comes through, of course,” he added.

She could not find her tongue.

“May I?” He asked, gesturing toward the bench.

She nodded.

He sat next to her. “Nell, I know when a woman is suffering from the heat, and I know when she’s with child.”

Shaken, Nell scrambled for a response. Realizing in short order that she was blushing and flustered, she strove to school her features, but it was, of course, too late.

“It’s true, then,” he said. “I thought so. The nausea and dizziness, the loss of appetite. Your eagerness to be divorced as soon as possible...”

“Do... Oh, dear God. Do you think Viola suspects?”

“If she does, she’s keeping it to herself. Does Will know?” He didn’t even question who the baby’s father was.

She shook her head. Looking up at him, she said, “I wasn’t lying when I told you I’m not his mistress. It wasn’t like that. It was... just once, before he took ship.”

“Yes, well, he should have taken precautions.”

“I didn’t think it was necessary. I thought I was... You told me I was probably barren after the miscarriage, so...”

“Probably
, not definitely.” With a wry smile, he said, “Of course, you never conceived, so I suppose we both assumed... But it would appear that I was the infertile one, eh?”

This was the first time since the renewal of their acquaintance that either of them had made reference, even obliquely, to the physical intimacy they had once shared. It was as if they’d had an unspoken agreement to pretend that part of their past hadn’t existed—until now.

Cyril propped his elbows on his knees and rubbed the brim of his hat between his fingers. “I’ve always felt a genuine affection for you, Nell, and a great deal of respect. You have a giving heart, or you never would have... indulged me as you once did. It was a gesture of kindness on your part, but one which I should never have asked of you.”

“Cyril...”

“Please let me say this, Nell,” he said without looking up. “I’ve wanted to say this for a long time. When I met you, you’d been savagely abused, you had no place to go. I offered you the protection of my home, and then I...” He shook his head.

“You’re making it sound as if you took advantage of me,” she said. “It wasn’t like that.”

“In hindsight, I’m not so sure.” Turning his head to look at her, he said quietly, “Let me do this for you, Nell. I’ll acknowledge your baby as mine, and I’ll take good care of both of you. We can live in Boston, if you like, so that you can be close to Gracie.” Looking down again, he said, “If, um, if you prefer, we can have separate bedrooms, and I promise I won’t expect... anything of that nature. And if, after the baby comes, you choose to divorce me, I won’t contest it or make things difficult for you. All I want is to take care of you, and to legitimize your baby. If you give birth of out of wedlock, your life will be ruined. I can’t let that happen, not after all that’s transpired between us.”

Bombarded by conflicting emotions, Nell said, “I don’t know what to say, Cyril. What you’re offering is incredibly generous, but I... I...”

“Has he ever mentioned marriage? Did he offer you any kind of commitment or promise at all before he...”

“As far as he knew at the time, as far as we both knew, marriage was impossible because Duncan was threatening to ruin me if I divorced him. That’s all changed, but at the time...”

“Has he told you he loves you?”

He hadn’t, even that night. “You have to understand, our relationship had been so... so careful for so long. We never talked about how we felt. He was always guarded in what he said and did—for my sake, because I had so much at stake. He only went to France to put some distance between us, because it was so excruciating, our being together but... not being together. The night we... It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. For him to declare himself when he couldn’t offer me any kind of commitment would have just made the situation more painful for both of us.”

“That is a great deal of explanation for a very simple question, Nell.” Before she could summon a response to that, he said, “Do you love him?”

Nell closed her eyes and nodded.

“Nell, you told me the other day that you have no way of knowing when he might be back from the war, that it could be months or years.”

She nodded morosely.

“You understand that by the time he comes back, your life will be utterly destroyed—if you’ve remained unwed.”