The Bracelet (35 page)

“Prosecution?” Ivy got to her feet. “You said yourself the gun wouldn’t fire.”

“That’s hardly the point, is it?” Sutton drew Celia closer to his side. “Feeling better, darling?”

Celia couldn’t stop shaking. “A little.”

Sutton opened the jar of coffee and poured some into a cup. “Drink this.”

It was bitter and cold, but it cleared her head. Celia drank it all and set down the cup. Sutton helped her to her feet and stood with one arm around her shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

“What about me?” Ivy asked, her voice suddenly panicked. “Louisa borrowed a boat and rowed me over here, but I told her I’d be coming back with you.”

“A grave miscalculation,” Sutton said.

“You can’t leave me here. It’s getting cold, and it will be dark soon. I could die from the cold. Or from a snakebite.” Ivy’s eyes were like a child’s—fearful and brimming with tears. “But maybe that would be best for everyone.”

Sutton let out an exasperated sigh. “No need for such histrionics. We’ll take you back with us. But you’ll have to find another place to stay. Celia can’t possibly trust you now.”

Ivy shook her head. “I can’t leave Madison Square. I have no inheritance of my own. Nothing except what Uncle David provides.”

Sutton bent to gather their things and tucked the empty laudanum bottle into the basket along with the pistol. “Perhaps you can stay with your newfound sister until arrangements are made for you to leave Savannah.”

Ivy lifted her chin, suddenly defiant. “If I do leave town, it will be on my own terms.”

Celia reached for her cousin’s hand, but Ivy jerked away with a ferocity Celia had never before seen. Clearly Ivy’s state of mind had worsened, her moods swinging wildly. If only Celia had seen it coming. Now however, despite her sympathy for Ivy, she had to think of her father. “I can’t have you upsetting Papa. If you don’t leave at once, I will file a complaint with the police.” Her voice shook. “I’ll tell them everything.”

Ivy laughed. “No you won’t. You care too much about your precious reputation. Nothing must be allowed to sully the noble Browning name and scandalize your high-society friends. That’s why you were so desperate to silence Mr. Channing.”

“You’re right. I am afraid of losing our good name and the respect of our friends. I don’t want the past to cast a shadow over my marriage and over the lives of our children.” Celia squeezed Sutton’s hand and met her cousin’s watery stare. “But I can’t worry about how people will talk. Not now. I can’t allow you to stay on at our house, stealing my father’s medicine, listening at the keyhole to our private conversations, and plotting another ridiculous scheme to come between Sutton and me.”

Sutton stuffed the tablecloth into the picnic basket. “We ought to get going. Dark comes early this time of year.” He handed Ivy the basket in which she’d hidden the dueling pistol. “You first.”

Ivy tossed her curls and spun away, heading along the narrow footpath toward the landing and the waiting boat. Sutton stowed both baskets and handed Ivy into the stern. “Sit there. Don’t move.”

“Goodness, Sutton, you don’t have to be so mean.”

He ignored her and seated Celia, then pushed the boat into the water.

A flock of birds exploded from the undergrowth, their cries breaking the strained silence. Celia looked to the west, where the sunset was fading to a luminous gold, streaks of apricot and lavender draining into the deep indigo of the coming winter’s night. She felt another tab of pity for her cousin. But Ivy had made her choices. Now she would live with the consequences.

They neared the Broad Street dock, and Sutton feathered the oars, waiting for a small sloop, its sails furled, to tie up at the wharf. Then he brought their boat in, tied up, and helped Celia and Ivy onto the wooden pier. Wordlessly they walked the short distance to the livery, where they retrieved Sutton’s horse and rig.

The gaslights were just coming on as the horse trotted along the sandy streets. Lamplight glowed in the windows of houses along Drayton Street, and wreaths of greenery decorated the doors of Celia’s neighbors on Madison Square. Christmas was her favorite time of year, but the events of the day had stolen her joy and the happy anticipation of the holiday.

Sutton guided the horse onto Harris Street and stopped his rig at the Brownings’ gate. The windows in the parlor and in Papa’s study glowed with soft light. Smoke from the twin fireplaces spiraled into the darkness.

Finally Sutton said to Ivy, “I’ve a ship leaving for Havana Monday morning. I’ll see to passage for you. And your sister, if she wants to go.”

“Havana? What on earth will I do there?”

“That’s up to you. Perhaps you can find work as a lady’s companion or in one of the shops along the waterfront. Eventually you might earn enough to pay for passage to Copenhagen and then on to Sweden. If I were a wagering man, I’d bet you’ll find your father there.”

“But I can’t possibly be ready to leave so soon. And anyway, I’ve lived here since I was a child. What will Uncle David say?”

“He’d say plenty if he knew what you’d done today,” Sutton said. “For his sake, we’ll tell him you’ve decided to set out upon a grand adventure. No doubt he’ll be disappointed that you won’t be here for our wedding. But it’s kinder to let him think you chose to leave than to have him know you were willing to murder his only daughter in order to get what you wanted.”

“But Sutton, you can’t send me to Cuba where I don’t know anyone. I don’t speak their language. I’ve never worked at anything other than volunteering at the Female Asylum and the circulating library.”

Despite Ivy’s crazed scheming, Celia felt responsible for her.
They had grown up together, attended school together. Ivy was illprepared to make her own way in the world, and she was, after all, blood kin. In her desperate bid to belong, Ivy had become someone Celia no longer knew. But Celia couldn’t turn her cousin out, alone and penniless. “I’ll give you some cash to tide you over. I won’t let you starve.”

Ivy brightened. “You will? You’ll give me the ten thousand?”

“Not ten thousand. But enough.”

Sutton got out of the rig and helped the women alight. “The
Percival
leaves Savannah on Monday’s morning tide,” he told Ivy. “I’ll send word to the captain to expect you.”

He took both Celia’s gloved hands in his. “I’ll stay here tonight. In the parlor. To keep an eye on things. You’ll be safe, my love.”

“Thank you.” Celia stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Sutton Mackay.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, spare me,” Ivy said. “It’s cold out here. I’m going in.”

She turned on her heel and climbed the steps to the door. Celia, saddened and completely bewildered, stared after her.

The smell of biscuits and frying bacon teased Celia awake. She sat up in bed. Maxwell, seeing that his mistress was up, vaulted onto the counterpane and licked her face.

She kissed the top of his warm little head and wondered where the
Percival
was this morning. Together, she and Ivy had told Papa the story they’d devised—that Ivy wanted to see a different part of the world. Papa had been surprised but too weak to ask many questions.

Once Ivy accepted the reality of the situation, she’d made short work of packing up her dresses and shawls, gloves and parasols
and walking shoes. By eight o’clock Monday morning, her trunks and hatboxes, her books and her black silk umbrella were stacked in the hallway ready to go.

Mrs. Maguire plodded upstairs with Aunt Eugenia’s writing box. “This belonged to your mother. She would have wanted you to have it.” Neither she nor Celia said anything about the diary.

It was the only time Ivy shed a tear. She thanked the housekeeper, made room in her trunk for the items, and went downstairs to wait for the carriage.

Presently, Joseph arrived, having already collected Louisa from the boardinghouse. While Joseph loaded Ivy’s belongings, Louisa leaned forward and peered out the carriage window, her expression unreadable.

Celia pressed a roll of bills into her cousin’s hand. “Sutton says almost everything is inexpensive in Havana. This should last the two of you for a while if you’re not extravagant.”

Ivy dropped the money into her reticule and squared her shoulders. “Well,” she said. “We’re off.”

She had climbed into the carriage, arranged her skirts, and waived gaily, as if she were on her way to make morning calls. And Celia had stood at the gate, watching, until the carriage was out of sight. Pages of her past, a complicated tangle of love and grief and obligation, had been torn away as surely as had the pages of her aunt’s red diary.

Now Ivy’s room across the hall was empty, and the entire house seemed too quiet. Celia threw back her covers and padded across the room to tend the fire. She shucked off her nightclothes, shivering in the early-morning chill, and dressed quickly.

Mrs. Maguire tapped on her door. “Miss Celia, your breakfast is getting cold.”

“I’m coming.”

Celia followed Maxwell and the housekeeper down the stairs.
She let the puppy into the garden and filled her plate in the kitchen. She climbed onto the stool and dug in. The biscuits were light as a cloud, the bacon thick and crisp, the grits warm and sweetened with maple syrup. It was her favorite meal from childhood. She regarded the housekeeper fondly. Undoubtedly this repast was Mrs. Maguire’s attempt to comfort her in the wake of Ivy’s sudden departure.

Mrs. Maguire poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the wooden counter. “How are you feelin’ this mornin’, my girl?”

“All right.” Celia buttered a biscuit and spooned on a blob of strawberry jam. “It’s quiet upstairs with only Papa and me.”

“Humph. It’ll be even quieter here when you are married and off on your own.”

“Once we’re back from England, Sutton and I will be here so often you’ll grow quite weary of us. You’ll see.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

Mrs. Maguire studied Celia over the rim of her cup, her expression so intent that Celia began to squirm. “Are you goin’ to tell me what really happened between you and Miss Ivy? It must have been something awful bad. I don’t believe for one minute she just up and decided to go see the world. Miss Ivy is not the adventurin’ kind.”

Celia’s appetite fled. She set down her butter knife. “Mrs. Maguire, do you believe some houses are cursed?”

“Cursed? By my faith, child, what kind of blather is that?”

The emotions Celia had fought so hard to control bubbled to the surface. “When that reporter, Leo Channing, wrote his first article for the paper last fall, he called our home the house of love and grief. He said the house was cursed because of what happened to my mother and then to Aunt Eugenia and the laundress. I didn’t believe it then. But now that Ivy has—well, it seems that every woman who lives here comes to grief.”

“What on earth are you talkin’ about? I niver heard of such nonsense.”

Celia had no doubt that whatever she told the housekeeper would never be repeated. Mrs. Maguire had been both mother and servant, confidante and friend. She was the very soul of discretion, the only one to whom Celia could unburden herself. It was true that the housekeeper had not been completely forthcoming, but surely she’d had her reasons.

“Ivy got the strange notion that she could force Sutton into marrying her.”

Celia poured more coffee and told Mrs. Maguire the entire story—the anonymous notes, the bracelet, the trip to Screven’s Landing, and everything that had happened there. But she saw no reason to share Ivy’s confession about her role in the death in the carriage house. “Ivy was jealous of me when we were children, but I never realized she hated me.”

Mrs. Maguire sank into her chair by the window. “By all the saints, I niver would’ve thought Miss Ivy could do such a thing. She’s always been a moody one and high strung, but to think she’s capable of stealing Mr. Browning’s medicine and his pistol and doin’ away with her own kin . . . I just can’t countenance it, that’s all.” She sighed. “On the other hand I guess I know how she felt. Fear is a powerful feelin’, Miss Celia.”

“Fear? Ivy had a very secure life here. She had nothing to be afraid of.”

“Until you started askin’ questions about how Miss Eugenia died and what happened in the carriage house.”

Celia didn’t try to hide her surprise. “You know what she did?”

Mrs. Maguire drained her cup. “What do you suppose people fear most in the world?”

Celia shrugged. “Death, I suppose.”

“No, darlin’. They fear loss. Miss Ivy lost her mother and then
her father. Then you became engaged to Sutton, and Mr. Browning got sick. That poor girl was about to lose you and the uncle who provided for her. I can imagine her lyin’ awake and worryin’ about what would happen to her then. She needed a husband to make her feel safe, and Sutton was the only good man she knew.”

“That was her own fault. She never wanted to go to dances or to meet any of the boys in our circle. Besides, I’m sure Papa made provisions for her in his will.” Celia’s coffee had gone cold. She poured a fresh cup. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

A carriage drew up at the gate. Mrs. Maguire peered out the window. “Here’s the doctor.”