The Forgotten Room(29)

I peeled off my gloves and stuck them into my pockets, then slid out of my dripping dress and slip, letting them fall to the ground because there was nowhere to hang them. I was still wet, and I smelled like a damp sheep. My gaze fell upon a bathrobe at the foot of what had been my bed. Without remorse, I grabbed it and wrapped it around my body, feeling mildly mollified.

I thought longingly of my peaceful attic room filled with light and the lost treasures of the people who’d once lived in the building. But it certainly wouldn’t do if I spent the night up there now, not since Captain Ravenel had awakened and begun his long road to recovery.

With a heavy sigh, I crawled under the covers of one of the unoccupied beds and closed my eyes. I should have been able to fall asleep immediately. The week had been long, my workload heavy. And tonight’s battles simply exhausting. But my thoughts kept drifting up toward the attic and to the solitary figure in the metal-framed bed. I kept picturing him as I’d last seen him, propped against the pillows, his face very close to mine. I remembered the sketch he’d drawn of me, and I wondered what had become of it. I was fairly sure it hadn’t fallen into Dr. Greeley’s hands or I would have certainly heard about it by now. I needed to remember to ask Nurse Hathaway if she had it. I wanted to keep the sketch. Not as a memento, I told myself, but as a reminder of something I might want to remember later in life. A reminder of the time a kiss had made light and color explode inside of me, a brief second when I’d questioned my chosen path in life.

I threw back the covers, knowing sleep would continue to evade me the longer I sought it. So as not to wake my sleeping companions, I stepped out into the deserted hallway and stood, listening to the nighttime pulse of the building, the soft hum like the memory of voices trapped inside its old walls. I crept out toward the elegant marble stairway, looking upward toward the glass skylight, and imagined I could hear the sounds of one of the grand parties that must have once been held in the mansion. I closed my eyes—just for a moment—and imagined I could see the handsome men in their tuxes and the beautiful women in their elegant clothes and jewels, smiling and dancing.

I opened my eyes, feeling dizzy. My imagination had seemed too real, as if I’d been remembering an event from my own past. I itched for a cigarette, to give my hands something to do more than from any real craving. But the night nurse would serve my head on a platter if I were discovered. I had almost decided to call Margie when I remembered the promise I’d made to myself earlier, about how I’d write to his family again if I hadn’t heard back by today.

I’d already begun stealthily walking down the stairs, listening for the night staff, and was almost at Dr. Greeley’s office door before I realized what I was doing. All correspondence was usually placed on his desk until he found the time to open it at his convenience. I happened to know that he was most likely already asleep in his bachelor’s apartment, and that he also routinely didn’t lock his office door—not because he was forgetful, but because he assumed his exalted position meant nobody would dare enter his office without his permission.

I turned the doorknob and opened the door. After making sure nobody was watching, I flipped on the light and locked the door behind me. I quickly went through the stack of mail on his desk, but there wasn’t anything from South Carolina—Charleston or elsewhere. I was about to admit defeat and try getting to sleep again when my gaze fell on an Army duffel bag shoved under a table heaped with books and papers.

All of the officers in the hospital had their duffel bags on the floor at the foot of their beds. All except for one. I bent down and read the name stamped in bold black letters on the side: CPTN CJ RAVENEL.

I sat back on my haunches, trying to justify what I was about to do. Maybe I didn’t have the correct address and my letter had not reached his family, and there might be something inside with another address. With the same bullheadedness that had made me apply to medical school despite what everybody else said, I unzipped the bag, making myself believe that if I didn’t do this, then Captain Ravenel’s family would be worried sick, possibly believing the worst.

I didn’t even pause before peering inside. It was mostly clothing—not recently cleaned judging from the odor that drifted out of the opening. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I was fairly certain that it would be relatively easy to find in a bag full of soft clothing. I stuck my hand into the bag and began shifting everything like a spoon stirring a soup pot. I lifted out a canteen, a book—Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn—a hardened package of Wrigley’s chewing gum, and a Dopp kit.

I was about to give up when my fingers brushed against something hard. I knew it was a picture frame before I held it up to the light and saw the tinted photograph of a woman who looked a lot like Carole Lombard.

She was beautiful, with icy blond hair and clear gray eyes, but whereas one could picture Carole Lombard laughing in one of her screwball comedies, the woman in the photo didn’t appear to be one who smiled easily. Her hair was dressed for evening, her head poised looking over her shoulder, her left hand lifted. And on her third finger sat a giant round diamond she seemed to be holding up like a trophy.

Victorine, I thought, even as my fingers quickly undid the clasps at the back of the frame. I slid the photograph out from behind the glass and turned it over, my breath held as I looked for the name I was sure had been written on the back, most likely in an elegant script and as unlike my own pigeon scrawl as possible.