Long Way Home(123)

We hugged, and I thought of the verse, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

We whistled for Buster and Lucky, and they came splashing out of the river. Jimmy and I stood back and laughed as our dogs shook off the muddy water. Then I set off for home, walking beside my best friend, eager to begin my future as Paul’s wife.





NEW YORK CITY, 1899

Adelaide Stanhope sat at her father’s gravesite, as still and upright as the surrounding tombstones. The enormous Stanhope obelisk loomed nearby, marking the place where her grandfather, great-grandfather, and now her father had been laid to rest. Grandmother Junietta Stanhope’s hand, gloved in black lace, lay limp and fragile in her own as the service droned on. Adelaide grasped so few of the clergyman’s words that they might well have been in another language—eternity . . . dust . . . life . . . rest. The scent of roses and lilies, piled prodigiously on her father’s coffin and heaped in profusion around it, drifted to her on the breeze. The heady fragrance seemed misplaced. It usually accompanied one of Mother’s grand dinner parties or balls, filling their New York mansion or summer home in Newport with their perfume. Adelaide closed her eyes, picturing Father in his tuxedo and starched, white shirtfront, Mother reigning beside him in a dazzling gown and ropes of pearls as they greeted guests in their vast, flower-filled foyer.

She opened her eyes again and glanced at her grandmother’s face, clouded by a veil of black netting. For a parent to lose a child at any age was a tragedy, especially an only child, an only son. Yet Grandmother’s eyes and wrinkled cheeks were dry. She sat stoically unbowed as if carved from wax like the figures Adelaide had seen in Madame Tussaud’s museum in London last year. Adelaide’s own eyes were dry as well, not only because a proper lady never mourned in public, but because her father, Arthur Benton Stanhope III, was a distant figure to her, a giant in New York’s business world who had spent most of Adelaide’s life in boardrooms and business meetings before his unexpected death. As his third and final child, she had been a disappointment to him from the day of her birth. A third daughter.

The minister closed his book with an amen. A sigh escaped before Adelaide could capture it, and she glanced around discreetly, hoping no one had heard. They hadn’t. She was accustomed to being ignored, but perhaps that wouldn’t be true much longer. With her two older sisters successfully married—one to a British duke, no less—Adelaide, at age nineteen, would be next.

She stood when her mother did and helped her grandmother to her feet. “Are you all right, Mimi Junie?” she whispered, using the affectionate name from her girlhood.

“Yes, child.” Grandmother gripped her silver-headed cane with one hand and Adelaide’s arm with the other. They shuffled forward to drop more roses onto the smothered coffin. Before moving on, Grandmother Junietta paused to stare at one of the floral arrangements. The ribboned banner read Beloved Son. “My son . . . ,” she murmured. “My son.”

Mimi’s thoughts sometimes slipped between decades, and occasionally back to her girlhood, so it would have been a blessing if she didn’t comprehend her loss. Her words proved that she had.

“Yes, Mimi Junie. He was your son and my father. I’m so very sorry . . . Come, our ride is waiting.”

Grandmother didn’t move. She looked up from the flowers and scanned the crowd of black-cloaked mourners as if searching for someone. “Is my other son here?” she asked. “Did he come today?”

Adelaide’s skin prickled. “I’m not sure who you mean, Mimi.”

“Where is my other son?” Her hand fluttered as if trying to stir a pot of dusty memories and draw out a name. “You know . . .”

Adelaide swallowed. “You don’t have another son, Mimi. Only my father. He was your only child.”

Grandmother stared at Adelaide for a long moment, then shook her head. “No, he wasn’t.” She scanned the crowd again. “I was hoping he would come today. I would so love to see him.” She gazed into the distance again before allowing Adelaide to lead her to the waiting carriage. Grandmother was obviously confused.

They climbed into the carriage and rode in dignified silence. Yet Mimi Junie’s puzzling words had shaken Adelaide, eroding her composure. Had Mimi lost a son through miscarriage or stillbirth or an early death? Wouldn’t there be a marker in the family cemetery plot if she had? And she would hardly expect a dead son to attend Father’s funeral, would she?

The questions niggled into Adelaide’s thoughts as she sat with Mimi in Mother’s enormous dining room for the funeral luncheon, accepting condolences from streams of people. After a long, wearying hour, Grandmother had had enough. Adelaide helped her to her room and settled her in a chair by the window, overlooking the garden. But before leaving, Adelaide had to ask.

“Mimi Junie . . . ,” she said, crouching in front of her. “At the funeral you mentioned another son.”

“Did I?” She stared into her lap, idly pulling off her lace gloves.

“Yes. And it was the first time I’d ever heard of him. Can you tell me more about him?”

Grandmother dropped the gloves and gathered Adelaide’s hands in hers, holding them with surprising strength. She met Adelaide’s gaze, her eyes bright with intelligence, brimming with love.

“You’re named after me, Adelaide Junietta Stanhope.”