The Forgotten Room(68)

So she had gathered up all her bravery and placed Harry’s hands on her skin, and when he had asked her if she was absolutely certain, she whispered back that she absolutely was. She had braced herself for the brutal moment, but he hadn’t been brutal at all, only tender and grateful and enamored, and he had held her so close afterward, she thought that their veins were clicking in the exact same rhythm, that they had actually achieved the kind of union that would make them immortal.

Then she didn’t think anything at all, until Harry kissed her awake just before dawn and helped her wash and dress. His chest was still bare, and she had put her hands on him in amazement. He had laughed softly and smoothed her hair and told her not to be shy, that she could touch him all she liked. He belonged to her now, like Adam belonged to Eve.

Then she had stolen back down to her cold bed in the nunnery, trying to encompass this thought. Trying to comprehend what she had just done. This trespass she had just committed, this sin that felt like the opposite of sin.

“He would be so dismayed to see you now,” said Mrs. Van Alan.

Olive snapped her gaze back to her mother. “Dismayed?”

Mrs. Van Alan was looking at the photograph. “Yes. To see you as a servant to that family, at their beck and call. Serving their needs.”

Was it Olive’s imagination, or was there a certain inflection in the words Serving their needs?

“Only to find justice for Papa,” Olive said.

“He would want that least of all.” Mrs. Van Alan shook her head, making her earbobs jingle against the dark waves of her hair, which were gathered into the same gentle knot Olive had known all her life. “He would want you to find a better life. A husband and a family of your own.”

“And if that’s not what I want?” Olive said defiantly, conscious all at once of her undergarments, which seemed to chafe on the sensitive skin between her legs in an entirely new way this morning.

“Olive! Don’t say things like that. You don’t mean them.”

“But I do mean them. I want to be free. I want to be independent and able to choose whom to love—”

“Olive!”

Her name bounced around the room, rattling the china, making the rows of sheep and shepherdesses shiver in shock. Olive planted her feet in the middle of the worn rug and returned her mother’s horrified gaze with too much sternness. But she didn’t feel stern. She felt as she had last night: as if she were finally telling the truth. Throwing off shackles. Contemplating the impossible.

What if she did follow Harry to Europe? What if they did live in Florence together, laughing at convention, repeating that strange and wonderful act as often as they liked, while the Italian sunshine poured down upon them like a benediction?

Italy. Where no one knew who she was. Where Harry might never find out how she came to live on Sixty-ninth Street.

“A parcel arrived for you yesterday,” said Mrs. Van Alan.

“A parcel!” Olive’s heart leapt.

Her mother turned back to the desk, and for the first time Olive noticed a small package resting among the china shepherdesses, wrapped in brown paper. “It’s from Mr. Jungmann.”

“Mr. Jungmann,” Olive repeated. Her heart settled right back into its ordinary place. “The grocer, you mean?”

“Such a nice man. Do you remember how you introduced us after church, last month? He’s been so kind. He calls on me every week, to see if there’s anything he can do for me. He fixed that stopped drain in the kitchen a few days ago. There’s something to be said for a fellow who’s good with his hands, don’t you think?” She handed the package to Olive. “I think he’s rather handsome.”

Olive stared dumbly at the brown box in her hands and tried to remember seeing Mr. Jungmann at church. Well, it was possible, wasn’t it? She and her mother always met for the nine o’clock service at the Church of the Resurrection, right after the Pratts had bundled off for fashionable St. James’ on Madison Avenue. “I—I suppose so.”

“Well, open it.”

Now she remembered. She had been a little surprised to see Mr. Jungmann there, because she hadn’t noticed him among the congregation before. He had been friendly and red-faced and had greeted her mother with the reverence of an acolyte before the Virgin Mary. He had said many complimentary things about Olive and parted from them with a quaint and formal little bow. And then Olive had returned to her duties at the Pratt mansion and forgotten all about it.

But Mr. Jungmann, apparently, had not.

Olive slid the string free and loosened the paper, which had been folded in crisp brown angles around an oblong box.

“Ooh, look at that,” said Mrs. Van Alan.

“It’s a box, Mother.”

“Dearest, the best things come in boxes. Go on, go on.”

Olive opened the box and unfolded the tissue to reveal an ornate silver hairbrush, beautifully made, its bristles so white they disappeared against the wrapping. “I can’t accept this!” she gasped.

“Gracious, Olive.” Her mother’s voice was slow with awe. “How beautiful!”

“It’s too much! It’s—it’s far too intimate.” She set down the box as if it were scalding her. “Far too expensive. It’s improper.”

Mrs. Van Alan snatched the box right back up and plucked the hairbrush from its nest of tissue. She laid it lovingly on her palm, turning it over, tracing the scrollwork with an admiring finger. “Don’t be a fool, Olive. He’s in love with you.”