The Forgotten Room(98)

“I scared you?” John’s face was the picture of remorse. “Lucy, I swear on my father’s soul, I never intended . . .”

“No, no,” Lucy said quickly. “You didn’t scare me. I scared me. The Pratts were just an excuse. I got scared and I ran away. It’s just—” She took a deep breath and said, quietly, “I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”

John’s arms wrapped around her, folding her close, his cheek resting against the top of her head. “Neither have I,” he murmured. “Neither have I.”

They stood in the cramped stair, neither of them feeling the heat or minding the musty smell of an enclosed space too long neglected. Lucy leaned the full weight of her body against his, her chest molding to his, her head fitting perfectly into the space between his ear and his neck, and knew that she had, at long last, come home. Wherever John Ravenel was, that was home.

“Do you think,” she said, after a very long time, “that we ought to see that room?”

“Most likely,” said John, making no effort to move. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint Matron.”

Lucy thought of the twinkle in Matron’s eye. “I don’t think she would be disappointed.”

John’s arms tightened around her. “She’s an excellent woman, your Mrs. Johnston.”

Lightly, Lucy said, “Shall we invite her to the wedding?”

“Mmm,” said John, and with a kiss on the top of her head, reluctantly let her go. “Shall we enter the Bluebeard chamber?”

“You don’t think it’s full of discarded wives?” Lucy ran ahead of him up the last few stairs. Turning back, she saw a curious expression on John’s face. She burst into a laugh. “Oh, really! You don’t think we’ll find heads on pikes?”

“Was it just the heads?” said John, abstractedly. “I don’t remember the story all that well.”

“Neither do I,” Lucy admitted. The handle resisted her pressure; she had to push before the door gave, creaking all the way. “I just remember—oh.”

Light. Sudden, dancing, brilliant light.

Light poured in through long windows that made three sides of the room more glass than wall, making the room seem to float in the sky. But the most brilliant light of all came from the ceiling, refracted through the panes of a miniature dome, the prism-like panels shimmering in the sunlight. Lucy saw rainbows, a miracle of rainbows, glittering across the worn Oriental carpet, dancing across the elaborately incised tin of the ceiling, turning the dusty room into something magical and rare.

“My God,” murmured John, behind her, his hands on her shoulders.

Lucy’s fingers covered his. “Who would have thought?”

Amazing to think this had been up here all this time, just above her room, and she had never known.

“The proportions—,” John was saying.

Lucy let the words wash over her, just taking it all in. On a second view, the signs of neglect were clear. The carpet must have been fine once, but the sunlight had faded it in parts to gray. An old sheepskin rug lay before the cold fireplace, the wool thick with dust, and, Lucy suspected, more than a few moths.

Someone must have removed the furniture that had once been here. All that remained was a faded chaise longue, the upholstery tattered (mice, thought Lucy mechanically), and a squat Chinese cabinet, the once brilliant gold paint filmed with dust.

But even so, even shabby and neglected, the room had a beauty that couldn’t be denied. It was a perfect square, the high ceiling with its miniature dome making the room feel cool even in the heat of the July day. There was something magical about it, like walking through a door in a perfectly ordinary house and finding oneself in a piece of the Alhambra.

“Look!” said Lucy, pointing. “Saint George!”

Above the fireplace, three terra-cotta squares had been set into the wall, colored stones creating intricate designs. The two on either side were heraldic shields, vaguely medieval. But in the center square was the saint himself, the same Saint George who had watched over Lucy’s childhood bed, shield in one hand, spear in the other.

A red-cross knight, Matron had said. Lucy moved across the room, the worn floorboards creaking beneath her sensible shoes. Despite time and dust, the cross on Saint George’s shield was still a brave crimson. Tentatively, Lucy lifted a hand to touch it—and a brick slid out below.

No, not just a brick. A cluster of bricks. Five or six of them, all welded together, and, behind them, a shallow cavity and the pale gleam of paper, sheets of it.

Most likely someone’s old laundry list or a pile of bills.

For a moment Lucy hesitated. Matron might have allowed them up here, but that didn’t give her the right to rifle through the room’s secrets.

And, then, from far away, she heard her mother’s voice, faint, gasping. Harry.

With sudden resolution, Lucy reached into the hole. It might not be anything to do with her, but if it was . . . she had the right to know; she needed to know.

The sheets of paper had been closely written in an angular hand, the prose tortured and oddly formal.


January 30, 1893


Dear Mr. Pratt,


As per your request, I have discovered the whereabouts of the former Miss Olive Van Alan, once maidservant in your mother’s employ. Miss Van Alan married Hans Jungmann in a small ceremony in Brooklyn on January the tenth of this year. The couple currently reside in Mr. Jungmann’s mother’s home in Brooklyn, where Mr. Jungmann has assumed the partnership in a bakery.