The Dilemma of Charlotte Farrow (24 page)

“You looked at a letter addressed to me?” Charlotte could not believe she had heard correctly. Surely even Sarah would recognize the impudence of the transgression.

“I didn't mean anything by it.” Sarah shuffled three steps back. “I can't help it if I'm curious.”

“But it was my letter.” Charlotte followed Sarah across the room.

“I just wondered why Lucy Banning would be writing to a kitchen maid.”

“That's none of your business, Sarah. What do you know about what became of my letter?”

“I . . . had a bit of . . . an accident with it,” Sarah confessed.

Charlotte crossed her arms and clamped her lips together. Sarah Cummings had tried her patience one time too many.

“I dropped it in the slop pail accidentally, and then I couldn't just put it back on the tray.”

“So you stole my letter?” Charlotte seethed, every muscle in her body itching to slap the girl. “Where is it now?”

Sarah looked at her feet. “In my room.”

“Go get it.”

“We're supposed to be packing the gowns.”

Charlotte set her teeth. “Sarah, go get my letter right now.”

Lina added, “Mrs. Banning did say we should do what Charlotte says.”

Sarah turned her eyes to Lina, but Charlotte did not release her own stare.

“Fine,” Sarah said finally, “but it was an accident, so you have no right to be angry.”

Charlotte rapidly wrapped jewelry while Sarah was out of the room, keeping her head cocked for the sound of Sarah's step on the back stairs near Lucy's suite and ignoring Lina's attempts at conversation. Finally Sarah reappeared.

Charlotte snatched the soiled and crumpled envelope out of Sarah's hand. Lucy's familiar flowery handwriting peeked out from the dried smudges and smears of the slop pail.

“This has been opened,” Charlotte said.

Sarah shrugged slightly.

“Have you read my personal mail?”

“I told you, I can't help it if I'm curious.”

“You don't have an ounce of self-control in your scrawny little body.” Heat flashed through Charlotte.

“I didn't understand it anyway. It's as if she was writing in code.”

“Perhaps that's because it was none of your business.”

“Or maybe it's because you have a secret. Why would you suddenly get two letters in one day? One of them was not even in the real mail, just a man in the street. Maybe Mr. Penard would be interested in that!”

Charlotte exhaled, lowered her shoulders, and turned calmly toward the stunned parlor maid. “Lina, I would appreciate it if you would continue putting the gowns away. I will be back in a few minutes.”

Charlotte took the back stairs down to the half level where the nursery was situated and entered. Instinctively she moved to the rocker and with trembling hands extracted the letter from the envelope. Sarah was right. It was like a code.

Lucy had guessed.

Whatever Leo had said about the child was enough for Lucy to discern his true identity.

Don't lose your joy
, the note said.

“It's too late,” Charlotte murmured. “I gave my joy away.”

 25 

T
wo days later, Charlotte tucked her chair under the kitchen table after the staff lunch and took the back stairs to her room.

Thursday was the one day each week she could count on a few hours off duty, so she could leave the cleaning up to Sarah. In the old days, she went every Thursday to Mrs. Given's house and spent the afternoon and evening with Henry. And then for a few weeks she was afraid to leave the house for more than a few minutes, because Henry was there and she wanted to know he was being well cared for.

Henry was gone.

And she had nowhere to go.

Charlotte sat on her bed, her knees tucked against her chest, and pulled the cotton blanket up around her. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, hoping to dream of a brown-haired smiling toddler with radiant blue eyes.

She woke when she heard scuffling across the hall and realized Sarah had come upstairs. If Sarah was finished cleaning up after luncheon for the Bannings, that meant the time was midafternoon. Tears seeped from Charlotte's eyes again, as they had so often in the last week, and she wiped them away
with the backs of her hands. In her mind, she heard Archie chiding her about not taking the precious few hours she was entitled to away from the house.

He was right, she decided. Henry was gone, and it was her own doing. What was there to gain by secluding herself in her room, swimming in self-pity at every opportunity? Charlotte swung her feet over the side of the bed, stood up, and crossed to her closet to lift a gray suit off a hook. Lucy Banning had given her the suit, along with a hat. Charlotte had not worn anything but maid's garb since the day of Lucy's wedding in June, when she had helped Lucy into her gown then lingered in the balcony at Second Presbyterian Church to observe the wedding.

Lucy and Will were so happy together. Charlotte mourned that she would never experience that gift.

Charlotte laid the gray suit on her bed and opened the top drawer of the rickety dresser. She took out the letter from Lucy to read for the twentieth time, then sighed heavily, not sure she would have done anything differently if she had received the letter when it arrived. Henry was still safer in New Hampshire.

She pushed closed the drawer with the letter inside and quickly changed her clothes. It was time to go out—somewhere. Wearing the gray suit, she stepped into the hall. Sarah's door was open, and the girl was wearing the green silk dress Flora Banning had bestowed on her two days ago. She had put the time to good use already. The waist was more tapered and the shoulders less broad.

Their eyes met. Not a word had passed between them since Tuesday morning.

Charlotte straightened her back. “The gown looks nice. Clearly you have real talent.”

Sarah's jaw fell slack and for once she had nothing to say.

“I mean it,” Charlotte said. “You've done a beautiful job. I hope you get to wear the dress someplace special.”

Charlotte slipped out the servants' entrance and began wandering south down Prairie Avenue. She had no destination, but she could not simply walk for the next seven or eight hours. A gaggle of gawkers moved north toward her, abuzz with wonder at the size of the mansions on the street and the intricate architecture and gilded carriages parked at the curb.

The fair.

I gave away my baby because
he
was at the fair. But was it really him?

Charlotte hurried her steps and turned toward Wabash Avenue and the nearest streetcar at the next opportunity. The answer was at the fairgrounds.

Archie hung his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair.

“Is there tea?” he asked. The afternoon driving schedule would not permit him to slip over to Mickey's shop today. Coffee would do in a pinch, but a good pot of strong Irish tea would hit the spot.

Mrs. Fletcher pointed with a wooden spoon. “On the stove. Just made it. Plenty strong.”

Archie took a cup down from the cupboard and opened the icebox for the cream. “Where's Charlotte today?”

“I haven't seen her since lunch.” Mrs. Fletcher dumped a bowl of bread dough onto a layer of flour and leaned into it with the heels of her hands. “I don't know why Mr. Penard agreed to give her the day off when she just spent an entire weekend in bed, but he saw fit. It's the other one I'm looking for.”

“Sarah?”

Mrs. Fletcher eyed the clock. “She has three minutes to present herself or she'll be sorry.”

Archie poured his tea and stirred in the cream. “So do you think Charlotte is up in her room?”

She studied him. “I don't see how that's any of your business. You'll not be going there.”

“No, of course not. It's just . . . I know she was ill. She may be relapsing.” He carried his tea to the table and sat down. Steps on the back stairs made him turn his head hopefully toward the door.

Not Charlotte. Sarah.

“Just in time,” Archie said, glancing at the clock.

Sarah sneered.

“We don't have Charlotte tonight,” Mrs. Fletcher said, “so don't dillydally.”

“Sarah, have you seen Charlotte?” Archie sipped his tea casually.

“She left a while ago,” Sarah answered. “She had on that gray suit Miss Lucy used to wear, acting as if she had someplace important to go.”

Where would she go?
Archie wondered. He had spent weeks trying to convince her to take her days off, and today of all days she decided to go out. Where? From what little she had told him, he gathered she did not have a friend in the city.

He filled his lungs at the realization of what would pull her away from the house after losing her child. The tea was hot, but he gulped it.

“I have to go out,” he announced, “and I might not be back before dinner.”

Mrs. Fletcher looked up sharply. “You'll need to take that up with Mr. Penard.”

Archie thrust his arms into his jacket. “No, I have to go right now. Karl will have to pick up Richard and Mr. Banning. Let the footman serve the soup.”

“You're going to be in serious trouble.” Sarah said.

“Mind your own business.” Archie wasted no time getting out of the house and over to the streetcar.

Charlotte stood at the entrance to the Midway. She could never know if he was in there unless she paid the fare and went through the gates.

This was absurd, she told herself. Millions of people had come from all over the country for the fair—even from around the world. Why should she think he was still there?

She stepped to the side of the throng crawling toward the gates and leaned against a lamppost, her eyes closed and the image of him turning in recognition ten days earlier dangling before her. Fear had cut through her, the pain blinding her from the details of that moment. She had seen only his face—that sneer—and instinctively lifted their son from the buggy and evaporated into the passing crowd. When she glanced back, he was gone.

But now she saw it clearly. Every detail. The shirt he was wearing with a red stripe across the shoulders. A uniform. And in his hands, the tool he held. A wrench.

“He was working,” she said aloud. “He works here. That's why he would still be here.”

Charlotte stepped toward the gate.