The Forgotten Room(116)
The old rush-seated chair still rested in its place near the easel. Harry sank down and leaned his forearms on his knees, staring at the folded letter in his hands. It was almost midnight now, and the year would be over. This unexpected year, that had turned out so vitally different from the one he had imagined, as he lay in Olive’s arms twelve months ago and drifted into a happy sleep. They were supposed to go to Italy, they were supposed to share a run-down set of rooms in Florence or a shabby little villa in Fiesole, and this baby that Olive held to her breast was supposed to be his. He had actually bought the ring. He had planned it all out. He had meant to ask her to marry him just as the sun rose on the first day of the New Year. What a romantic fellow, the old Harry Pratt.
And this dream, it had been so close! A hairsbreadth away, a few minutes on a clock, an Olive who was perhaps a little less noble, or a little more sleepy, and he would be the father of Olive’s child instead of Maria’s.
Did Olive think about this, too? Was she awake right now, as he was, in some room above some bakery in Brooklyn? He closed his eyes, and he thought he could almost see her, sitting in a chair with a baby in her arms, and her fat German bastard husband snoring contentedly in the bed behind her.
Except that, for some reason, in this moment, sitting in this room stuffed with memories, while the same eternal moon poured through the skylight to pool on the floor before him, he felt no rancor toward this man. For the first time, he felt no resentment for Hans Jungmann, or for the baby he had made with Olive, the girl who should have been Harry’s daughter. His chest still hurt, but it was a warm kind of ache, and as he pictured the baby’s tiny face, and Olive’s exhausted arms, the ache turned into something else, something fulsome and tender and unending. Forgiveness. Love. The inexplicable certainty that, in a way, this child did belong to him. That she and Olive belonged to him, always, carried about in some chamber of his heart that would never close.
Harry opened his eyes. The familiar room assembled again before him. What had happened here was gone, and he couldn’t have it back. Maybe he’d just been lucky to have it at all, even for a few weeks.
He turned his head to the wall that contained the fireplace. There was no fire, of course, but the ashes remained in a small and tired heap, hardened by the dampness of a year’s neglect. His gaze rose to the mantel, and to the bricks above it.
During that first frantic week of 1893, he had slid the brick out of its place every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes three times, hoping to find some message there from Olive. But the space remained empty and hopeless, and on that last day, when he had gathered up his paints and drawings, he hadn’t even bothered to look. Too mad at her. Too mad at himself. Too mad at God.
Harry rose from his chair and walked toward the mantel. The brick slid out easily in his hand, just as it always had. A few motes of dust and mortar floated out into the air. He stuck his fingers inside and felt something hard and ridged against his fingertips.
For a moment, he closed his eyes and let his hand rest where it was. The way you might savor a rare glass of wine before taking the first sip, because you didn’t want to rush these things. He’d learned that much from Olive, anyway. You didn’t want to rush something that happened only once, and was gone.
He drew the object out.
She had wrapped it in a square of old velvet. Harry stuck the envelope under his arm and unfurled the ends, one by one, taking his time. A small folded note lay on top. He opened that first. His fingers shook a little.
Take this, in remembrance of one who will always love you.
And his eyes filled with tears, damn it, so that when he looked down at the miniature itself, he couldn’t even see her. Couldn’t see the rare and perfect details of her face, the expression in her eyes. But he didn’t need to. He knew every brushstroke. He’d painted her himself, exactly as he wanted to remember her. Almost as if he knew he would need it one day.
Through the glass of the doors—or maybe it was the skylight—came a faint roar of delight. Dong, dong, sang the bell of a distant church spire. Fashionable St. James’, probably, where his sister had married her prey, that tall blond man with the nice kid who always tagged along, hoping someone might give a damn.
Eighteen ninety-four. Time to move on.
Harry draped the velvet square back over the miniature and the folded note, and he placed them carefully into his inside jacket pocket. In the cavity above the mantel, he placed the Pinkerton report, and then, after an instant’s hesitation, the scribbled notes he’d written to Olive but never sent. Maybe she would stop by one day and find them. You never knew.
He placed his two hands on the mantel and stood there a moment, contemplating the three terra-cotta squares—the crimson figure of Saint George, sword raised in triumph to the sky—until he couldn’t stand it anymore and turned to the corner of the room, a few yards away.
He’d meant to throw it in the fireplace, but his arm had been more forgiving—or more sensible—than his furious head, and the little box had fallen in among the canvases stacked to the right, well away from the danger of the coals. At the time, he had thought about going to retrieve it, but instead he had gathered up his supplies and left the thing where it fell.
Now, as he moved the wooden frames aside, he thought it would be a miracle if the box was still there. He’d spent far more than he should, for a man planning to support a wife and mother-in-law abroad, and how could a small fortune like that remain unmolested, no matter how obscure its location?