The Forgotten Room(110)

Lucy shut the door of her room firmly behind her, shutting out the inquisitive stares of the other residents. She was their Cinderella story, and they were half-envious, half-excited. If Lucy could catch a Schuyler, then surely there was hope for them?

Lucy’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. Did Cinderella wake up the next morning to find that the slipper pinched? She was trying hard to fit into Philip’s world, to be a credit to him, but it wasn’t always easy. She knew people talked and whispered, that everyone knew that she had been his secretary, that she had stolen him away from Didi, my dear, yes, right under her nose, just like that! They spied and whispered, and Lucy had to work twice as hard to maintain her serene smile, to pretend that she didn’t care.

Panic gripped her. Could she really go through with this? If she loved Philip—

That was the rub, wasn’t it? She did love him, just not in the right way. She loved Philip enough to know she didn’t love him enough.

But she was too selfish and cowardly to let him go. Without him—

There was a knock on the door. Dottie again, her small eyes avidly scanning the room, feasting on the pile of boxes, hatboxes, dress boxes, the rich tissue paper and glossy boxes so incongruous in the attic room with its peeling paint and grimy windows. Lucy’s new wardrobe, for her new life as Mrs. Philip Schuyler.

“This came for you.” Dottie thrust the envelope into Lucy’s hands. Her eyes rested on a pile of boxes. “Are those from—”

“Thank you.” Lucy shut the door in her face, not caring how rude it must seem.

Lucy bolted the door behind her, the paper burning like a brand in her hands. The blurred postmark read CHARLESTON, S.C. The envelope tore as she opened it, her hands too quick, too eager. The letter was thick, pages of it, written in a large, loose hand. A sprawling, easygoing writing, just like his walk, his voice, his movements.

Dearest Lucy, the letter began. Lucy could practically feel John there, in the room with her, standing behind her, his voice warm in her ear.


I know I have no right to write you, but when I saw the announcement of your engagement I knew that I couldn’t remain silent any longer . . .

She ought to tear it up, but she hadn’t the strength for it; she gulped down the words, greedy for them, dizzy with them.


. . . not too late. We can still be together. . . . Love like this doesn’t come along more than once in a lifetime.

I love you, Lucy. Always.

Do you want to make the same mistake our parents made and live the rest of your life living a lie, knowing that love was there, in our grasp, and we threw it away?

Nights at the opera with Philip, smiling, pretending. Endless dinner parties. Always a little on her guard, even with her own fiancé. Trying, so hard, to pretend to be in love.

Nights with John, curled up together, easy together, never having to try, speaking with touch as well as words, that effortless sense of homecoming, of never having to pretend, of being just what she was, because what she was would always be enough for him.

Philip—Philip would recover, thought Lucy wildly, clinging to the sheets of John’s letter, Prunella’s veil crumpled, forgotten, on the floor. There would be other women. He was so urbane, so charming. He thought he wanted Lucy; he called her his talisman, his touchstone, but it was nonsense, really. He could find someone from his own world, someone who would adore him as he deserved to be adored.

Train tickets . . . How far to Charleston? When she got there, a hotel, she supposed. John hadn’t said anything about where she would stay.

He hadn’t said anything about anything.

Lucy fell back to earth with a thump. Slowly, she sat down on the bed and scanned the letter again, looking for the practicalities, the bread and butter of where and how they were to live. There was nothing about a divorce. Nothing about Annabelle. Words of love, beautiful, yes, but utterly insubstantial, like dining on meringues and champagne and rising from the table with a headache and an aching stomach from eating sugar and air.

Come to me, be with me, live with me, love me. Yes, yes, all that, but how?

Lucy pressed her palms to her aching eyes, loving John and hating him all at the same time. Didn’t he know that the knight was supposed to ride up and sweep the princess away, not leave her to make her own way out of the castle? The dragons were still there, unslain. Annabelle, Cooper, John’s mother, his sister—who was Annabelle’s friend.

And then there was Philip. He’d defied his own people for her—whether she had wanted him to or not, thought Lucy shrewishly, and then chided herself for it. She’d run to Philip, had used him as a shield. She was as guilty as he. And, having used him as a shield, she could hardly abandon him now, leave him at the altar to be whispered at by all those carping society matrons, those twittering friends of Didi who would be only too delighted to see him get his comeuppance for daring to choose a secretary over one of their own.

Slowly, Lucy shuffled the pages of the letter back together. Just the touch of the paper felt like a forbidden indulgence, this paper that had touched John’s hands and now touched her own, a thin thread tying her to him.

For a moment, Lucy’s hands tightened on the pages. She wanted him still, loved him still.

But the cost was too high.

Do you want to make the same mistake our parents made . . . ?

Lucy waited until the sounds of activity had faded from the hallway, everyone tucked away for the night. In the darkness, she felt her way down the hall to the abandoned staircase. It felt different at night, narrower, steeper. The stairs seemed to stretch on forever, the door, without John’s strong hand, stuck before releasing with an audible creak.