Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan(34)

“Where’s Jack?”

“I sent him out with the housekeeper. He’s looking so pale—I thought the air would do him good.” She catches Holly’s frown. “Darling, don’t worry—this isn’t your New York. It’s perfectly safe. And there are so many groceries on your list, poor Nan will never manage on her own.”

“Nan?”

“The housekeeper.”

At Holly’s raised eyebrows, Jane nods. “I know. I would have hired her anyhow—she’s really a wonder—but her name was quite the good omen, I thought.”

“Quite the coincidence, rather. Is that her real name?”

Jane lifts an elegant shoulder and lets it fall. “I haven’t the foggiest. Nancy, perhaps? But the original nanny—Wendy’s—was a Mary, you know. A proper Irish nursemaid by all accounts, always popping in and whisking Wendy off for a bath or a walk or some such. Sir Barrie simply loathed her. Making her the dog in the story was his petty revenge. ‘The nose of a bloodhound with the face to match,’ he’d say. ‘Whenever we’d get up to a spot of mischief, in she’d come.’ Anyhow, when I heard her name, I simply had to have her. Besides, she’s a marvelous cook, which turns out to be fortuitous. Do teenage boys truly eat that much?”

“You have no idea.” Holly sinks into the leather armchair across from her mother, suddenly exhausted.

“Well then, we shall have to impose upon poor Nan to stock the refrigerator with casseroles and roasts. It’s the only way he’ll survive. I’m afraid my cooking skills have not improved over the years. Now do try this. It’s not too early for you, is it?” Jane glances at the antique watch that adorns her slender wrist. “No, it’s definitely cocktail time. No excuses.” She hands Holly a cut-crystal glass and raises her own.

“To the Darling women, past, present, and future,” she says, as the portrait of Wendy gazes down on them from its place of honor above the mantel.

Holly clinks her glass against Jane’s and dutifully sips the whiskey. It’s vaguely illicit, sipping spirits in a dim library in the afternoon. Not the type of example she wants to set for Jack. But the whiskey does help to wash the taste of her morning away. Her mother is right—it is remarkable. She takes another sip. It burns on the way down.

Jane watches her for a moment. “Good, isn’t it?” she says, holding her glass up and turning it slowly in the light to admire the liquid’s color.

“Very,” Holly agrees. There’s a pleasant warmth spreading throughout her center. It belatedly occurs to her that she’s had nothing to eat all day. “I should get lunch,” she says, gesturing with her glass in the direction of the kitchen.

“Well,” her mother says, “I could fix some toast, I suppose. Or there might be a package of Hobnobs left in the pantry. But I’m afraid that’s it until Nan returns.”

Neither option appeals to Holly. Her mother pours more whiskey into her own glass, brings the bottle over to Holly.

“No, thank you,” she says, but Jane pours her a splash anyhow.

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” she says. “Sit back and relax. A little whiskey won’t hurt you.”

It’s hard to argue with that, so Holly takes another sip. The whiskey is making it easier to forget that she’s hungry, easier to not think about everything that’s gone wrong in the last week. Easier not to worry.

Until Jane speaks again.

“Now tell me. Your phone call was absolutely cryptic. What’s happened with Eden,” she says. It’s not a question. She’s looking at Holly with her bird-bright eyes remarkably unclouded by drink. People who meet Holly’s mother for the first time are lulled into being charmed by her airy, engaging social patter and graces. They see her as simply a very, very wealthy widow, devoted to preserving her family’s history and lineage, finding pleasure where she can. Those who know her well or have the misfortune to cross her recognize she is the proverbial steel fist in a diamond-laden velvet glove. Now Holly can’t help but wonder how much of the whiskey, of their time alone, was serendipity, and how much was shrewdly planned by Jane in advance.

Still, Holly has no choice. There’s a chance, if only a small one, that Eden could show up in London, at this house. She spent time here as a very young child, an infant, really, and although most children could not recall that far back, Eden has always been precocious. If there’s any possibility she could turn up here seeking help, whether on her own or escaping Peter, Jane needs to know.

She couches it carefully. “I’m not certain. It’s possible she woke up, that she was confused and wandered off. But whatever the case, she’s disappeared.”

“My dear,” Jane says. “How terrifying. You must be out of your mind with worry.” A pause. And then, slowly, “But no police.” Again it’s not a question.

“No police,” Holly echoes.

“You know what would happen.” The Darlings have learned the hard way over the years that police inquiries and press coverage lead to unpleasant questions that often cannot be answered satisfactorily, starting with the disappearance—and then return—of Wendy and her siblings. In Eden’s case, what would they make of the equipment at the Cornwall house? What might the nurses let slip? Holly could lose Jack if that happened. She could lose everything. So she nods.