The Last Camellia: A Novel (16 page)

“It smells like Mummy,” Nicholas said.

Their mother’s perfume.

Katherine huffed. “It’s not Mummy’s perfume, you ninny,” she said, turning her nose to the air. “It’s coming from the kitchen. The cook probably burned the roast again.”

Nicholas eyed his mother’s camellia book before looking at me again. “Miss Lewis, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” I said.

He sighed. “Our last nanny, Miss Fairfield, said a mean thing about Mummy the day she was dismissed.”

“Oh, honey, whatever did she say?”

Nicholas clasped his hands together. “She said, she said . . . that our mother wasn’t a real lady.”

If I lived at the manor for a decade, I still don’t think I’d get used to taking my meals with Mr. Beardsley hovering around the dining room. He served the meals, assisted by Mrs. Dilloway. He’d place rolls on our plates as if we were incapable of reaching for them ourselves. All of it made me long for home, and the quiet, unpretentious meals at the kitchen table in the apartment over the bakery, where Mama and Papa and I would laugh and talk, and dip our bread into Mama’s potato soup. And if we wanted another piece or, heaven forbid, more butter, we’d reach for it ourselves. New York seemed a world away.

Mr. Beardsley held a tureen and ladled fish stew into each of our bowls. He eyed me coldly, I thought, as he passed my seat, but then again, I hadn’t gotten used to the formality in the house.

“Aw,” Nicholas complained. “Not fish stew again!”

I shot him a look before his father scolded him. “What Nicholas meant to say was, ‘Thank you, Mr. Beardsley.’”

Lord Livingston nodded at me, and dipped his spoon in his bowl as Mr. Beardsley hovered beside him. “If I may, your Lordship,” he said, nervously wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “May I have a word with you?”

Lord Livingston nodded, released his napkin from his neck, and turned to us. “Please excuse me.”

A moment later, he returned. Sitting back down at the table, he held out his hand, where a silver coin rested in his palm, and cleared his throat authoritatively. “It has come to my attention that one of the Roman coins from my collection has turned up in . . .” He paused, looking directly at me. “In Miss Lewis’s quarters.”

My mouth gaped open, and I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t understand,” I said quickly. “That can’t be.”

“I have no other choice but to ask you to leave, Miss Lewis, at once.”

“But, sir, but, please, I—”

Lord Livingston held up his hand. “Please, don’t make this harder than it is.”

My cheeks flushed as I stood up, setting my napkin down on the table. Mrs. Dilloway eyed me with disdain. Janie began to cry. The older children wouldn’t look at me.

In the doorway of the dining room, I stopped when I heard the scuff of a chair on the wood floors. “Wait,” Abbott said. “Don’t go, Miss Lewis.”

“Abbott,” Lord Livingston said, “I’ve already made my decision. Do not contradict me, young man.”

“But, Father,” he said, “Miss Lewis didn’t take the coin.” He scratched his head nervously. “I did.”

Mr. Beardsley exchanged a look of shock with Mrs. Dilloway.

Lord Livingston appeared momentarily astonished. “You did
wh
at
?”

Next, Nicholas rose to stand behind his brother. “I’m to blame too, Father,” the younger boy said. “We put it in Miss Lewis’s bedroom.”

Katherine stood next. “I knew too,” she said. “I should never have let them go through with it.”

“Children,” Lord Livingston said, “why would you do such a beastly thing?”

Abbott looked at Nicholas. “You see,” he said nervously, “we didn’t like Miss Lewis. Not at first. We thought she’d be like all the other nannies. So we tried to get her sacked.” He stopped and smiled at me apologetically. “But then we realized she was different, Father. She wasn’t like all the others. But it was too late. We tried to get the coin back, but by the time we went back to her room, it was gone.”

“We’re awfully sorry, Miss Lewis,” Nicholas said.

Lord Livingston slammed his fist on the table. “Abbott, Nicholas, and you, too, Katherine—I’ve never been more disappointed in my children.” He turned to me. “Miss Lewis, please accept my sincere apologies for this . . . misunderstanding.”

“Of course, sir,” I said quickly. Katherine began cry. “Please, your Lordship, don’t punish them. They’ve been through so much already; it’s only natural that they’d—”

“What on earth is this?” Lord Livingston said suddenly, after Ferris trotted in and deposited something in his lap. The dog wagged his tail expectantly, oblivious to the mood in the room. “Beardsley, what has Ferris made off with here?” He held up a mauled piece of fabric, tan in color. “Well, I’ll be hanged,” he said. “I do believe this is my sock.”

A thick silence fell over the dining room. I wasn’t sure whether Lord Livingston would storm off to his study or send the boys to their room. Surely one of the two. But then he picked up his napkin and covered his mouth. I detected laughter from behind the napkin. Mr. Beardsley chimed in next, beginning with a chuckle that turned into a roar. The children followed suit, even Katherine.

“I have two very sneaky sons,” Lord Livingston said with a wry smile. “But it’s most uncanny, Mrs. Dilloway,” he continued. “They were telling me earlier how much they’d enjoy helping Sadie wash the dishes tonight. I don’t suppose she could use a little help in the kitchen later?”

Mrs. Dilloway looked at me and then at Mr. Beardsley with raised eyebrows. “If you say so,” she said. “Miss Lewis, bring them downstairs after dinner.”

Abbott and Nicholas smiled through the rest of their dinner. I knew they didn’t care about having to wash dishes, not when they’d seen their father smile for the first time in what was probably a very long time. I smiled too, for now I knew I had earned the children’s admiration.

“I hope they weren’t too much trouble with the dishes,” I said to Sadie in the washroom later that night.

“No,” she replied, twisting her long hair into a single braid, “they did their best. Nicholas broke a saucer, but this house has enough saucers to invite the entire country to tea.” She paused. “I heard that his Lordship was laughing at dinner.”

I nodded, smiling as I recalled the scene.

“This house could use more laughter,” she said. “He carries such a burden, you know.”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

She tied the end of her braid without looking up. “Lady Anna was a saint, if you ask me,” she said. “All those women.”

I shook my head. “You’re not saying that—”

“That he was unfaithful to his wife?” Sadie shrugged. “That’s between him and his maker.” She tucked her braid into her nightcap with a sigh. “But, yes, there were many, including—” She shook her head, as if snuffing out the thought. “I mustn’t gossip. Well, good night, Miss Lewis. I’d better turn in.”

Before I turned my lamp out, there was a knock on my door. “Yes,” I said.

Mrs. Dilloway stood in the doorway in her nightgown.

“Come in,” I said.

“How can you ever forgive me?” she said.

“Forgive you for what?”

“I don’t know what I thought I was doing looking through your things,” she said, sitting down in the chair beside my desk. “I worried you were too perfect, and I thought if I found something in your room, I could have a reason to distrust you. Even when I found the coin, I didn’t believe you’d taken it, but I—”

“I’m not upset,” I said as it dawned on me what she was saying. “I completely understand. You did what you had to do.”

She shook her head, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “No,” she said. “I was out of line.” She looked into my eyes. “I beg your forgiveness, Miss Lewis.”

“You don’t have to beg for it. I will give it to you freely.”

“Thank you,” she said, standing up.

“Mrs. Dilloway,” I said as she reached for the doorknob. “How long have you loved Lord Livingston?”

She didn’t seem the least bit startled by my question. Perhaps the incident tonight had leveled the playing field between us. We’d moved beyond the pecking order of the house to two women—two women facing our own battles, our own loves, our own heartache. “Oh,” she said wistfully, “I suppose since the day I arrived at the manor.”

I nodded.

“I never meant to hurt anyone,” she said. “Especially Lady Anna.”

“I know,” I assured her. “Please, don’t feel that you have to explain yourself.”

She took a deep breath. “Miss Lewis,” she said, looking at me with vulnerable eyes. This was the face of a friend. “You see,” she continued, “I’ve come to realize that you can fight a lot of things in life, but you can’t help who you love. You can’t change who your heart chooses. I’m afraid that very fact will be the greatest tragedy of my life.”

I didn’t bother to turn on the lamp by my bedside. The light from the moon streamed in through the window with the intensity of a forty-watt bulb. I took out a piece of stationery and an envelope from the desk drawer and sat down to write a letter home:

Dear Mama and Papa,

I miss you terribly, and yet I already worry about leaving the children. I’ve come to love them, even in this short time. I feel for them, having just lost their mother, and with a father who hardly acknowledges them. Well, perhaps I’m being too hard on him. Perhaps he has a heart after all? Anyway, I fear that without my presence here, they would suffer greatly, especially the littlest one, Janie. She’s just two years old, without a parent to show her the love she desperately needs. The ten-year-old girl, Katherine, is my hardest case, though. She misses her mother terribly. And Abbott, the older boy, is deeply troubled. I haven’t yet figured out why. Anyway, there’s something else: I get the feeling that there is some sort of dark secret surrounding the death of the lady of the house. Don’t be frightened for me. I know I’m in no danger here, but there are questions that no one will answer about her death. I’m making it my very own mystery to solve, how about that? Well, please write when you can. It feels very lonely here at times, and I’d love nothing more than a letter from home. I’d ask for you to send bread, but I suppose it would only end up hard and stale by the time it arrived. Instead, I’ll imagine Papa’s honey whole wheat and dream of home.