The Address, page 29
“What if Mother dies?” Emily spoke with a quiet candor.
“Yes, what if Mother dies?” the twins echoed.
“I have no doubt the doctor will take very good care of her.” Sara should stop speaking. She didn’t know anything about the situation and was possibly giving them a false hope. But her job was to comfort them, and this was the best she could do, under the circumstances. “For now, shall we divide up the dolls, then I’ll ring up for some sweets?” Today was Thursday, when the downstairs chef made pineapple pudding.
“Yes, please.” Luther twirled about with excitement. “I’ll take the doll with the cracked head. I don’t mind.”
Sara smiled. She put Christopher down in his crib and he settled in nicely, staring through the slats as they went through dolls of all shapes and sizes, and divided them up. The last one, made of rags, had seen better days, and all the children agreed that it should live in Christopher’s crib and be his first doll.
When she laid the doll down beside him, he gave her a silly, drunken smile.
She rang for the pudding and the four of them had a tea party in the bedchamber, full of giggles and gentle teasing. When Siobhan’s footsteps were heard trudging down the hall, Sara reluctantly gave her good-byes, promising to return soon.
By then, Christopher was fast asleep.
Even after Miss Honeycutt’s return, Sara stopped in daily to visit with the children either before or after she returned from work. When Miss Honeycutt needed a break, Sara’d take them up to the roof promenade and let them run around, while she held Christopher in her arms.
Although Mrs. Camden had been gone less than a week, something about having her away, winning this temporary reprieve from the very fact of her in their lives, had made her and Theo even bolder. He slept in her bed most evenings, and she welcomed his presence, even if she couldn’t sleep through the night with him there. She would lie awake, wondering how much longer they had. He didn’t seem to mind that she was getting closer to his children.
For the past two nights, instead of lying awake in bed, listening to Theo’s snores, Sara crawled out and slipped on her dressing gown before sitting down at the sewing machine. Its whir made her heart sing. Deep into the night, she would work on her fancy new machine with fabric she bought at Stewart’s Department Store. First up were sashes for the girls and a necktie for Luther, all in different shades of blue, from cyan to a deep azure. For Christopher, she had already made a sailor outfit with a navy collar and matching tie.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was trying to make up for the baby she’d lost. Trying to prove to Theo that she was a perfect mother, much better than his wife. This morning, in the depths before dawn, she had wished the woman would die. She’d almost run her own finger under the needle and barely missed getting an awful prick, as if the machine had understood her selfish sentiment and decided to punish her.
On Friday evening, when Sara went downstairs to tuck the children into bed, Theo announced that he had a surprise for them all for the next day. The kids pressed him for information, and he held off for a couple of minutes, telling them that he couldn’t possibly let on about the secret or they’d never be able to get to sleep.
Which, of course, only served to rouse them more.
“Please, tell us!” Emily was now standing on her bed, jumping up and down.
“You might as well; they will never sleep as it is now,” said Sara.
“All right, then. Tomorrow we’re all going to see the ship carrying the Statue of Liberty.”
Sara had read about it in the papers, that the enormous sculpture, packed up in pieces on a French ship, had finally arrived in New York Harbor. Great festivities were planned for Saturday, including a parade of yachts.
The children erupted into cheers but crawled back into bed after promising to be ready to go at precisely seven o’clock the next morning.
In the brougham going downtown on Saturday, Sara sat next to Theo, with Christopher on her lap and Emily and the twins lined up on the other side, chattering away to one another. Christopher wore his pretty sailor outfit, the girls had insisted on their sashes, and Luther wore his necktie.
They looked like the perfect family. Which they were not.
Sara couldn’t shake a feeling of unease. “Theo, are you sure I should be in attendance with you?”
“Who else? Miss Honeycutt’s a bore.”
“I mean, people will talk.”
“Let me worry about them. You enjoy yourself. You deserve some fun, after how hard I’ve been making you work, Miss Smythe.”
She’d gone back to using Miss after returning from Blackwell’s, and it made her feel ridiculously dainty and young to hear it on his lips.
Theo climbed out of the carriage first, then turned to help out Sara and the baby. Emily came next, with Lula leaping out behind her.
Theo turned to Luther, irritated. When the child pulled back from his hand, planning on jumping down as his sister had done, Theo reached out and grabbed his arm, hard. “Act like a gentleman.”
“Yes, Papa.”
The boy rubbed his arm and went to stand beside his twin, grumbling softly.
Maybe Theo wasn’t as unconcerned about their appearance together as he let on. She didn’t like the way he took it out on the children, though.
Theo led them to a landing beside an enormous yacht. Before getting on board, a photographer asked to take their picture. Theo declined, but the children insisted Sara stand with them, holding the baby. The man scribbled down their address and promised to put it in the post after Theo had given him twenty-five cents.
The ship filled up with passengers, and Sara and the children found a spot to sit at the rear, while Theo wandered about and hobnobbed with the dignitaries and businessmen on board. As the yacht headed out into the harbor, Emily, Lula, and Luther squealed with delight and Christopher slept in Sara’s arms, lulled by the rocking of the waves.
How different this journey through the harbor was from the last. When Sara had arrived a little over a year ago, she was a lowly housekeeper. Now she was an assistant to an architect and lived in a flat in one of the newest and most splendid buildings in New York City. How far she’d come.
“There it is!”
The captain cried out from behind the helm and pointed at a great ship with a white hull out near the Narrows. Sara pointed out the French flags, and their vessel joined a parade of similar ones, all lined up behind the French frigate. A band on a neighboring ship played “La Marseillaise,” but the music was soon drowned out by the horns of the steamships and the deafening roar of cannon fire from Fort Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton.
The noise was too much for Christopher, who began to fuss.
Finally, Theo returned. “What a day. Are the young ones enjoying themselves?”
“They certainly are. It’s too much for him, though.”
A couple who lived on the Dakota’s third floor wandered by. Sara smiled up at them, but the man stared and his wife made a point of turning away.
Her face reddened. “I feel we are making an embarrassment of ourselves. It could hurt your business.”
“You know what I wish?” Theo placed his hand on hers. She wanted to pull it away, stop anyone from seeing their intimacy, but he held it firm. “I wish Minnie wouldn’t come back at all.”
Christopher began to cry. She rocked him gently. “He’s overwhelmed by the noise. You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why not? We’re both thinking it. I know that makes me a terrible person. But then I could marry you and you could move in with me where you belong. I hate what I’m doing to your life.”
“I love my life. I love the children. I love you.”
“My dear. We will figure this out, I assure you. To think that I almost lost you. What a mistake that would have been. Please have faith in me.”
It was the most he’d spoken of his feelings in a while. They’d both been under such stress.
As if on cue, Christopher began to wail. The ship was close to shore and Sara offered to take him back to the apartment house so Theo and the other children could carry on to the speeches in front of City Hall. How she wished she could keep speaking with him, but the moment was too raw, too exposed.
Back in the dim light of the Dakota, the air was heavy and thick and there was no sign of Miss Honeycutt. Christopher had calmed down in the carriage, but now his fussiness resurfaced. She undressed him, lifting his outfit up over his head. He gave a deep sigh and promptly fell asleep. His skin was as pale and smooth as an eggshell, the blue veins beneath it like a map of crisscrossing rivers. He was no one’s child, really, so he might as well be hers.
The front door opened and shut. The governess returning from gossiping about Theo and Sara’s “arrangement” with the other staff, most likely. Sara didn’t care. Theo loved her. That was what mattered.
The air changed imperceptibly. The scent of rosewater. Sara twirled around.
Mrs. Camden had returned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
New York City, October 1885
The woman who stared back at Sara was a completely different person from the sickly patient who’d been carted off a week ago. Mrs. Camden looked almost regal, wearing a handsome black-and-cream silk afternoon dress. The only giveaway of her illness were the creases under her eyes and gray shadows that emerged even under a coating of powder.
“Miss Smythe.”
“Mrs. Camden.” Sara took her hand off the side of the crib and stood limply, trapped.
Mrs. Camden walked over to the crib and Sara moved out of the way, allowing her by. But Mrs. Camden didn’t reach down, smooth the blanket, nothing at all maternal. Just stared at the boy as if she’d never really seen him before. The sailor outfit hung over the rails at the head of the crib.
“What’s this?” Mrs. Camden fingered the material.
“A sailor dress I sewed. While you were away, Miss Honeycutt asked me to help out with the children in a pinch, and I thought this might suit him.”
“You made him this?”
“As well as small things for the others.” She had meant the statement as a way of showing that her attentions had been equally parsed among the children, but judging from Mrs. Camden’s pinched lips, it had come off as possessive. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Mrs. Camden appraised Sara from her feet to the top of her head, assessing every inch. She must know. Of course she knew. The servants talked; the other neighbors must have seen Theo coming back from her rooms in the morning. Sara was no better than her mother, who had succumbed to the advances of the Earl of Chichester with devastating results. The point of coming to America was to escape the old habits, the patterns of destruction. She’d wandered right into the thick of it.
“I overstepped. I’m sorry.” Sara hoped Mrs. Camden would understand the multiple layers of meaning that swirled around the four words. She’d wrought havoc in the home of a sick woman. Like her mother, she’d lose everything. She would take the sashes, necktie, and sailor suit away, store them in her trunk, out of view. “I must go.” Sara turned to leave.
“No, wait.” Mrs. Camden’s voice was no less than a command. But suddenly her head dipped forward. A trembling hand went to her forehead.
“You’re ill; let me help.” Sara put her arm around the woman, who leaned into her.
“I feel faint.”
No wonder, returning home to find your husband’s lover hanging about in the children’s nursery.
“Please, let me make you a cup of tea.”
Sara led her to the kitchen. They didn’t speak for a while, as Sara boiled water, steeped the tea, and then poured it. Being back in the kitchen, instead of one of the formal rooms, made the idea of the two of them having tea together somehow palatable, weirdly cozy.
Mrs. Camden took a sip, then placed the cup carefully back on the saucer. “Where are the others?”
“They are out with Theo, I mean Mr. Camden, at the Statue of Liberty celebrations.”
“Emily sent me letters every day that I was away, filled with what you were doing. Together.”
“I wanted to help. Mr. Camden seemed out of his element, and Miss Honeycutt . . .” She paused.
“Miss Honeycutt is far too concerned with the attentions of the new porter, Davin, these days.”
Davin was a strapping boy with dark eyes. Mrs. Camden’s acuity surprised Sara. “I believe you are right.”
Mrs. Camden laughed. “He’s a handsome lad.”
“The children missed you. They are quite lovely. As is Christopher.”
“Yes. My ward.” An odd way to refer to the boy. Or maybe it was the tone of her voice, like she’d bitten into a fruit and found it to be unripe. “I never formally gave you my apology for accusing you of stealing the necklace. I am sorry about that. I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. But I should have.”
How long ago that time seemed now.
Mrs. Camden continued on. “I’m still recovering, and I want you to take care of the children the way you have been.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.” Maybe she hadn’t heard her correctly. Or maybe Mrs. Camden was only saying this for effect, to appear generous.
“You should continue taking care of Theo as well.”
At this, Sara’s heart pounded. The woman was staring at her, not with malice or judgment. Her face was clear.
“Mr. Camden is a difficult man. I don’t have the energy right now to handle him in the way he wishes.”
Could she be saying what Sara thought she was? The conversation was tipping over into dangerous territory. “I am happy to work as Mr. Camden’s assistant in whatever way necessary.”
“No. I want you to take care of him beyond that.” Mrs. Camden put a hand out on the table, as if she were going to cover Sara’s, but stopped short. Instead, she drummed her fingers on the wood. “Arrangements like this happen all the time.” She looked out the window before adding, “It’s quite simple, really.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She fixed her gaze on Sara. The twins’ eyes had the same hazel coloring, the same gold flecks near the iris. “Of course you do. Don’t be shocked. It’s for the best. Theo responds to you in a way he doesn’t to me.”
The woman was feverish, maybe.
“You’re not feeling well; you must lie down and rest.”
Mrs. Camden sat up straight. “No, the weakness has passed. I am recovered, according to my doctor. The illness was unrelated to my prior one. I am weak, yes, but it’s from the realization that this is what I wanted all along.
“It’s better for you to be with Theo. He’s all yours.”
A month after Sara’s conversation with Mrs. Camden, the arrangement had settled into a routine: Theo slept up in Sara’s flat each night and had dinner there with her when he didn’t have a business event to attend. Sara visited the children on Saturdays when Mrs. Camden was out making calls, and if they passed in the courtyard, they nodded at each other and continued walking.
Theo, meanwhile, was a madman at the office, juggling multiple commissions, overwhelmed. There were no more outings after the harbor cruise, neither with the children nor just the two of them. She’d suggested they bicycle in the park one Saturday, but he either didn’t hear her or pretended not to.
She comforted herself with the thought that it was only until the business was on its feet. By next year, Theo would be able to slow down and enjoy himself. She couldn’t help but wonder if Mrs. Camden knew exactly what she was doing when she abdicated her role to Sara.
One night, when she knew Mrs. Camden had taken the train to the country for the weekend to visit friends, Sara slipped down to read the children a good-night story. To them, Sara was a special friend, not a rival, and she appreciated that Mrs. Camden had done nothing to taint that relationship.
Theo sat in a club-back chair in the study, smoking a pipe and reading the newspaper.
“Well, aren’t you the very picture of a successful, satisfied man?”
He grunted. “That damn Albany project will be the death of me. They want more revisions on the drawings. On top of it, McKim, Mead have been asked to design the Goelet Building. We won’t have any success if they keep on yanking out projects from right under our nose.”
“You yourself said it was a long shot. They have over ten years’ start on us.” She walked over to him and leaned down to give him a quick kiss.
He clasped her hand. “I do realize I brought all this on myself.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
He kissed the inside of her wrist before guiding her onto his lap. But she tripped over the chair leg, almost falling to the floor, before he grabbed her arm and caught her.
“Ouch. Be gentle, kind sir.” She rubbed her arm, which was already turning red.
“Sorry, my love.” He lifted up her arm and kissed the spot. “I’m turning into a beast these days. There I was complaining about not getting enough work, and now there’s too much.”
“Once we hire the new draftsmen and another junior architect, you’ll have less to worry about.”
“You’re right, as usual. Off you go, say good night to the children, and then join me in a sherry.”
The children were sleepy already. Christopher gave her a bubbly smile when she leaned over his crib. Luther cuddled close when Sara sat on the side of his bed.
“You have an ouch here.” The boy pointed to the inside of Sara’s elbow, at what was going to be a bruise tomorrow.
“I certainly do.”
“Now we match.”
Luther rolled up the sleeve of his nightdress to show a purple circle on his upper arm.
The boy’s arm was no bigger in circumference than a cucumber, and as fragile. “Did Miss Honeycutt do this?”
