The Pursuit of Lucy Banning (3 page)

The older woman eyed the young maid for a moment before speaking. Charlotte forced herself to breathe normally. If Mrs. Fletcher went in her room, her new life might come to an end before it even began.

“Go up to the servants’ quarters,” Mrs. Fletcher finally said, “and you’ll find an empty room at the end of the hall, on the left. There’s a green trunk. I think the apron is in there, though it may need pressing before dinner.”

“As soon as the potatoes are peeled, I’ll press it.” Charlotte forced brightness into her face. “I’ll run up there right now and find it.” She turned and scampered up the stairs before the haggard cook could reconsider. Prior to proceeding to the empty room, Charlotte paused at the closed door to her own room and listened carefully. Satisfied, she let herself expel an anxious breath and went in search of the green trunk, wondering if she would ever breathe normally again.

In the unused room, which was hardly bigger than the space required to hold the three unmatched trunks Charlotte found there, she sank to the floor and put her head on the green trunk.
What have I done?
she wondered.
I’ll be found out and they’ll turn me out.

The thought of going back was all Charlotte needed to snap out of her despair. She could not go back. They would not find out. She had to deal with one moment at a time. Charlotte opened the green trunk and found it held several dresses. Most of them were more frayed than her own, and Charlotte pitied the girl who left them behind. Charlotte had brought two worn carpetbags into the house. One of them held three dresses and an extra set of under things. The other bag no one could see. Closing her eyes briefly, she prayed for the gift of a little more time—and the gift of silence.

Charlotte found the maid’s uniform. The apron was worn thin but was spotlessly white and wrinkled only where it had been folded. Charlotte crept back to her own small room, which was squeezed in between those of Mrs. Fletcher and the ladies’ maid who served both Flora Banning and her daughter Lucy. She silently laid the uniform on the bed. Then she peered into the second bag, relieved to find the contents undisturbed.

This arrangement couldn’t last long. Charlotte knew that. But for this moment, everything was fine, and this moment was the only one she had. With another silent prayer, Charlotte asked for a reprieve of just ten minutes. She was sure that was all she needed right now as she reached for the top button of her dress.

 3 

L
ucy hoped Daniel was not waiting for her outside the teahouse. If he saw her getting off a streetcar, she would never hear the end of it. Daniel would likely hire a carriage to be at her disposal around the clock. Then her parents would wonder why that was necessary when the family had several carriages and drivers of their own and Aunt Violet was generous with hers. All Lucy wanted was to go from one point to another as efficiently as possible, and sometimes the streetcar or train met that fundamental requirement. In her plain gray suit, she fit in with the crowd availing themselves of public transportation. She was determined that someday she would even ride a bicycle.

Daniel rarely suggested meeting for tea anywhere but the shop convenient to the bank where he worked. Its location and luxurious ambiance made it popular with the families in his parents’ social circle. When Lucy and Daniel met there, they nearly always ran into someone Daniel knew. Lucy was not so naïve that she didn’t notice how much this pleased him. Today Daniel was not likely to be happy to see her wearing her “orphan rags,” but even if Paddy had been available, she would not have had time to go home first to change.

The streetcar stopped at its usual corner and Lucy descended its steps, glancing across the street and exhaling relief when she did not see Daniel standing outside.

Lucy had never not known Daniel Jules. He was there in her earliest memories and all the family stories. The Bannings had known the Juleses since before either couple married. Daniel was the first arrival of the new generation, and, it turned out, the only one for Howard and Irene Jules. Flora and Samuel, who married two years after the Juleses, promptly produced Oliver, then Leo. By the time Lucy arrived in the Banning household, Daniel Jules was seven years old. After three boys between the two couples, a little girl had no escape from inflated attention. Before her first birthday, the mothers were scheming for a wedding two decades off.

When Lucy was four and Daniel eleven, both families built lake houses on adjoining lots outside Lake Forest, beyond the northern boundaries of Chicago, as a summer reprieve from soaring temperatures. Daniel, Oliver, Leo, and Lucy spent their summers together, the boys turning brown and Lucy progressively compelled to protect her ladylike fair coloring under a wide hat or an umbrella. Each fall the boys returned to the Harvard School for Boys on Indiana Avenue, the same school her youngest brother, Richard, now attended in the shadow of his brothers. Lucy went to the Holman-Dickerman French and English Day School for girls, an honored establishment that prepared young women for refined lives.

Crossing the street, Lucy twisted the ring on her left hand as she remembered the night she realized she was going to marry Daniel Jules. She had been eight years old and had snuck past her nanny, who was distracted with a fussing baby Richard. At the bottom of the stairs, she heard her parents’ voices in the parlor.

“I’m so glad Howard and Irene agree,” Flora said. “They’ve been enchanted with Lucy since the day she was born. Just think, someday we’ll all be in-laws!”

“Daniel is a good match for Lucy,” Samuel said. “Howard will make sure he’s well established.”

“He’s just enough older that he can be in a good position by the time Lucy is old enough to marry.”

Lucy sat on the bottom step.
I’m going to marry Daniel.
It made perfect sense—and she was relieved to think she would not have to worry about finding someone to love and marry. All she had to do was grow up.

As a young teenager, Daniel often managed to meet her at the carriage that carried her home from school with one of her brothers in tow.When she was herself a teenager and he a college man, he attended to her wishes whenever he was home. Daniel first kissed Lucy one summer at the lake. Even now Lucy looked back on that moment as one of sweetness.

Daniel spent the years waiting for Lucy to be ready to marry by establishing himself in the banking industry. Though his father was wealthy enough to support several coming generations, he insisted Daniel prove himself worthy of the daughter of his dear friends by embarking on his own fortune. So far Daniel had done fairly well. Lucy didn’t know the details—just as her mother didn’t know the details of her father’s finances—but Daniel and his father supplied sufficient offhand remarks for Lucy to be certain that when she married Daniel she would be well taken care of.

And now she had grown up, she was engaged to Daniel Jules, and everyone was eager that the two families be linked forever by their union. Flora and Irene were ecstatic at the thought of sharing grandchildren.

When she turned nineteen, Lucy knew her parents believed she was ready for betrothal. They had allowed her a couple of years after leaving school to accept frequent social engagements where she conversed and danced with other young men. For a few months, she was frequently on the arm of George Glessner—but always assuring Daniel that it meant nothing. She also honed her skills at the piano with private study that gave her the confidence to gladly respond to requests to play at parties. However, this was merely training ground for being an accomplished wife to a bank executive. Though she knew she would marry Daniel eventually, Lucy endeavored to buy more time.

“Once I’m married and have a household of my own to run, I will have to focus on that,” she had told her mother as they sat in the parlor with needlework one afternoon. Lucy was embroidering a tablecloth for her own trousseau. “I do want to marry Daniel, but first I want to try to do something that really matters.”

“You speak of marriage as if it doesn’t matter.” Flora lifted her eyes from the detailed stitching along the edge of a handkerchief and looked at her daughter over her glasses.

“It’s the orphanage, Mother. I think I can really do some good there, but I have to be free to spend time every week. I can help organize the office, or teach, or perhaps even find permanent homes for some of the children. Is that not worthwhile? So few people are willing to commit themselves.”

“How long?” Flora asked.

Lucy rapidly gauged her mother’s mood. “Three years.”

“One.”

“Two, then.”

Daniel had been patient enough considering the circumstances. He himself was still absorbed in establishing independent finances. As long as he could see Lucy as freely as he liked, he was content to wait.

However, now that she was twenty-one, her parents expected Lucy to direct her attention to her future. Daniel was already interviewing architects to design the home they would live in. He had his eye on an empty lot not too far away from Prairie Avenue. It would be their first home, Daniel reminded Lucy, until he was able to build her the mansion she deserved.

Will Edwards waved through Lucy’s mind as she involuntarily wondered whether Daniel would consider using his architectural firm. It would certainly bode well for Will’s future if he could attract a client such as Daniel Jules.

The engagement had become official last July 4. Both families celebrated Independence Day at the lake, and in the middle of the festivities, Daniel produced a stunning sapphire ring. Lucy recognized the stone as one that belonged to Daniel’s mother. He’d had a new setting designed for it with diamond accents on sterling silver. Her parents were right. It was time for her to plan for her future.

A series of three horse-drawn carriages seemed in no hurry to clear the intersection, confirming in Lucy’s mind the efficiency of the streetcar. When they finally did, Lucy lifted her skirts slightly and proceeded to cross the street.

Inside the teahouse, Daniel sat at a table against the wall, facing the door. It was his favorite table. From that vantage point he could see who was coming and going and lift those glimmering brown eyes or dip his head in acknowledgment of anyone he knew—and it seemed to Lucy that Daniel knew everyone in Chicago. He stood as she entered and pulled out a chair for her. She settled into it, set her satchel at her feet, removed her gloves, and smiled at him as he took in her gray clothing.

“I was scheduled to go to the orphanage,” Lucy said, before Daniel could object to her plain appearance. It was only a half-lie. As far as her family was concerned, she was scheduled to go to the orphanage. In the past, before the term started at the university, she would in fact have been at the orphanage on a Thursday afternoon.

Daniel glanced down at the satchel that held her art history textbook and lecture notes. “Are you now bringing work home from the orphanage?”

Lucy waved a hand. “Oh, it’s just some odds and ends of supplies. I’m never sure what will come up. It just seems easier to carry a satchel and be prepared.”

“It makes you look a bit like a schoolgirl.”

Lucy leaned toward him and gave a wry smile. “As I recall, you didn’t mind walking a schoolgirl home on a fine afternoon when you were home from college.”

He smiled at last and she saw the pleasure spring in his eyes. “True enough.” Pleasure evaporated as quickly as it flooded in. “But I do wonder about the amount of time you spend at the orphanage. Are you sure it’s necessary? I rather expected that as our wedding approached, your involvement there would taper off.”

“Mr. Emmett needs my assistance,” Lucy assured him. “He has a young man in his care who deserves a university education. The Banning name may be helpful in attaining that.”

“Emmett has hundreds of orphans. Surely he can’t expect you to give personalized attention to every one.”

“Don’t they all deserve attention?” Lucy challenged.

Daniel shrugged. “I’m not completely unsympathetic to their plight. As you know, my family contributes substantially to St. Andrew’s. But how realistic is it to fill this boy’s head with dreams of going to the university? He could go into service with a good family and start earning his own way. We could take him on ourselves once we’re married if you like.”

Lucy bristled. “Perhaps he doesn’t want to go into service. Perhaps he wants to attend university.”

“Some people have more limited choices than others. It’s the way of the world.”

“Maybe it’s a bad way for the world to be.”

Daniel leaned back and examined Lucy. “I’m not quite sure where this is coming from, my dear. It’s unlike you.”

If only you knew.
“Never mind. I suppose I’m just in a bit of a funk.”

“A good pot of tea will help.” Daniel signaled the waiter and ordered tea and sandwiches. “I think I’ve settled on the sketches for our house. We do need to set a date for the wedding that allows enough time for building.”

“Perhaps we should wait until the building is under way and we’re sure how long it will take,” Lucy suggested.

Daniel shook his head. “The crew will work more efficiently if they know there’s a deadline.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Leo has a friend who is an architect, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.” The steaming tea arrived. Daniel rearranged some dishes while Lucy poured.

“I only just met him, but he seems quite nice. Perhaps he could have a look at your sketches.”

“Where did you meet him?”

When will I learn to be more careful?
Lucy had set her own trap. She picked up her teacup to take a sip. “I was at the university on orphanage business and ran into them,” she finally said.

“Oh, well, if he’s a friend of Leo’s, I suppose he could have a look, though I’m fairly certain of whom I’d like to hire. Back to the question at hand.”

“The question at hand?” Lucy echoed.

“The wedding date. How would you feel about midsummer?”

“Midsummer?” That was nine months away, and she couldn’t possibly wait that long to tell him the truth. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Daniel, though.

“I suppose we should consult our mothers,” Daniel said. “It’s likely they already have a date picked out and just haven’t told us!”

Lucy laughed nervously. “Yes, I suppose so.” She let the moment go. The time was not right.

“Would a date in July give you enough time to plan the wedding?”

Lucy chuckled again. “Another question for my mother. But I would imagine so.”