Work Text:
"... and rumor has it, Elias Woodstone has stepped out on his wife! No one has seen or heard from him in a few months now. Oh, it's quite the scandal. Do you remember his wife Henrietta? She's practically been cast out from polite society, the poor dear."
Lucy grabbed her napkin and dabbed it over her mouth, hoping it obscured her reaction from her mother. She'd spent the last hour idly listening as her mother prattled on and on about all the local gossip of Ulster County. After spending most of the last two decades in Europe, she hardly knew anyone in the area anymore, so very little of it mattered much to her. Those she did know all those years ago were practically strangers to her now.
But with one name, Eliza Pryor now had her daughter's full attention.
Hetty Woodstone.
Did she remember her?
How could she ever forget?
Unbidden, she could feel the string of tears threatening to fill her eyes.
"If you'll forgive me, Mother, the train ride didn't quite agree with me," she said, praying the lie wasn't too obvious. "I think I'd like to rest now, if you don't mind."
Hetty stabbed her needle through the fabric with perhaps a bit more force than strictly necessary. It didn't really alleviate the anxious swirl of dread she felt, but at least it occupied her hands and kept her from pacing throughout the house like a wraith, startling the servants. She'd save that for the evening when sleep inevitably eluded her yet again.
She'd returned from visiting her sister in Michigan to find Elias gone without a word to anyone. Not to their family nor friends. He didn't even have the basic decency to leave a note. Their servants couldn't say where he'd gone either. They didn't recall him ever leaving the property. Or so they all said. But then, most of them tried to avoid him anyway, so what did they know? Upon her return, they all had been more interested in receiving their back wages than the whereabouts of their wayward master, after all.
And while part of her welcomed the reprieve from that pompous, hornswoggling wretch, his sudden absence left absolute havoc in his wake.
Reginald appeared in the doorway. "There's a Miss Pryor to see you, ma'am."
Hetty raised an eyebrow. This was outside the established hours that she usually welcomed callers to visit her, and there were several possible "Miss Pryors" as they were of a rather large family. Moreover, though the family was quite respectable, they simply existed within a different sphere of society than the Woodstones…or at least did before Elias absconded with whatever tramp caught his eye this time and most of Hetty’s remaining dignity. Their paths rarely crossed. Visits from any one of them were quite uncommon.
"Is it Mary, perhaps?"
"No, ma'am, I don't believe so. I am unfamiliar with the lady in question."
Part of Hetty was tempted to decline receiving this guest, but as news continued to travel around the region about Elias' disappearance, more and more people began to avoid her. Visitors were few and far between as of late.
Curiosity and loneliness won the battle over her sense of propriety.
"Very well," she said as she set her embroidery aside. "I'll be down momentarily to meet this Miss Pryor. Have Marion set out a tea service for us."
"Very good, ma'am." Reginald nodded and took his leave.
She stood to give herself a once over in the mirror. Satisfied that she looked presentable, even though she was in just a simple tea gown, she took a deep breath and made her way downstairs.
As Hetty approached the landing of the staircase, she looked up to see who this mysterious Miss Pryor actually was. Her head tilted as she made note of the dark-haired woman. She wore an emerald green dress with a matching hat, and she stood with her back toward the staircase, examining the various knickknacks on the credenza while she waited.
Her posture and silhouette seemed so very familiar…
But no. Surely not. It simply couldn't be.
Not after all this time.
As the woman reached out to trace a gloved hand over the pattern of a vase, Hetty found herself imagining that same hand gripping a paintbrush instead. She gasped.
The woman turned her head then, allowing her to see her in profile.
She nearly stumbled down the remaining steps. It was indeed her.
Though Lucy couldn't make out what was being said, she could hear Hetty’s distinctive voice as she spoke with one of her servants upstairs. She sounded much the same as she did twenty years ago, her voice perhaps a little richer in tone.
She shivered at the memory of it, of that voice once soft and low against her ear as they huddled together, whispering sweet promises to one another.
A sharp gasp startled Lucy. She turned away from the vase she’d been admiring to see Henrietta Woodstone staring down at her from the middle of the staircase, gripping onto the banister with both hands. She looked as though she’d just seen a ghost.
The curly ringlets that once fell down her back in a fiery cascade were now mostly tamed into a fashionably regal chignon, and still that deep, vibrant copper that fascinated Lucy from the very moment she first saw Hetty. Though the softness of youth had given way to a slight sharpness of her features, time had treated her with a great deal of kindness. She still looked very much like the woman Lucy once knew all those years ago.
She didn't think it possible, but somehow, standing there on the staircase in her ivory tea gown looking like a Grecian statue, Hetty was even more beautiful than ever. That same strange feeling behind her ribs still shimmered within her as she gazed at her. It had been there since the very day they met, when Hetty entered her tutor’s art studio for the first time. While Victor had been the one hired to paint portraits of Samuel Woodstone’s two daughters, Lucy had begged for the opportunity to paint the elder Miss Woodstone as well. Victor fully understood precisely why she yearned to capture her likeness on canvas so desperately. She’d found her muse, her inspiration, and he was happy to accommodate her artistic urges so long as the young woman in question consented as well.
While he started painting Margaret Woodstone’s portrait, she quickly befriended Hetty and found her quite agreeable to sitting for an additional painting during the days that she chaperoned her younger sister. And soon, she even found excuses to drop by even when her sister wasn’t due for a session.
Lucy had wanted to experiment a little bit beyond the more traditional portraits she often painted, and they discussed various ideas. It started out with Hetty playfully posing around the small room that served as Lucy’s own studio, making the silliest faces to get her to laugh. But the moment Hetty turned to her with a slight, coquettish smirk and lifted her skirts just enough to expose her slender ankle, Lucy gasped and frantically insisted she stay put while she sketched an outline.
Neither dreamed it would ever leave Lucy’s possession.
“Mrs. Woodstone, it’s…been a very long time.”
That shook Hetty from her dazed stupor. She raised her chin, regaining her sense of decorum as she descended the remaining steps to meet her in the middle of the foyer.
“Yes. Yes, it has, Miss Pryor.”
Hetty looked down the hallway behind them and then spared a glance toward the second floor, probably checking to see if they were being observed by her servants. Then she nodded for her to proceed into the library, closing the doors behind them once they were over the threshold.
Once the long doors clicked into place, she flipped the lock and spun around. Leaning against the doors for support, she breathed out her name in breathless awe. "Lucy..."
"Hello, Hetty,” she murmured.
She blinked at her as though she still hardly could believe they were in each other’s presence again. And to be fair, it had been twenty years and their parting occurred under less than ideal circumstances, both terrified that their affaire de coeur might be revealed.
Assumptions had been made upon the discovery of the painting, that either one of the young gentlemen who studied under Victor or possibly even Victor himself painted it. Mr. Woodstone never asked for specifics, too focused on the fact that his daughter had any part in such “filth”, a descriptor that still made Lucy bristle at the memory of it. He demanded the painting before any other patrons or students might see it and recognize the subject therein. Then, he immediately began preparations to assure his daughter effectively remained under his thumb.
There’d been one last hurried meeting between them, Hetty announcing her engagement to Elias though she looked positively ill at the very thought of it, while Lucy told her that Victor was arranging for her to continue her studies in Paris…and in retrospect, probably to aid her in getting over her infatuation with Hetty.
Though Lucy suggested she try to come with her somehow -- or begged, really -- Hetty remained adamant that it was simply impossible, especially with her inheritance now at stake. At the time, Lucy was too youthful and naive to understand. She’d stormed away in anger, her last memories of Hetty obscured by a blur of tears and harsh words she never really meant. But life in Paris had not been simple for a long time, and she came to realize Hetty’s sheltered and pampered upbringing would have limited her and left her ill-prepared for a more austere existence. The lifestyle of an artist, especially a woman, was not lucrative. Only through the modest support of her own family and a few benevolent patrons was she able to manage long enough to build a sustainable career for herself eventually.
Sometimes she wondered if it had all been necessary. Samuel Woodstone certainly never wanted anyone to be aware of his daughter’s dalliances, even if his notions were rather off course from reality. She was fairly certain he never suspected Hetty's paramour was Lucy herself. Perhaps they still could've carried on their affair under the guise of a deeply intimate friendship…
But no, she realized, with the way Hetty was looking at her right now, they couldn't have kept it hidden. Every memory, every touch, every kiss was written plainly on her face in a way that an ocean, a marriage, and twenty years never managed to temper.
And Lucy didn't need a mirror to know the same was true of herself.
Hetty finally stepped forward and gestured toward the settee by the window. “Please, do sit down.”
Lucy took a seat and removed her hat while Hetty stepped into the role of the consummate hostess, pouring two cups of tea for each of them. Her heart clenched when she realized Hetty still remembered her preferences, even all these years later. Their fingers brushed as she presented the cup and saucer to her before taking a seat across from her on the other side of the sofa.
“How have you been, Lucy? I was so sorry to hear about your grandfather, by the way.”
She smiled gratefully at her and told her of her time in Europe, how she’d recently seen Greece and even studied for a while in Italy. She nearly faltered, though, when she looked up to see the glassy, faraway look in Hetty’s eyes when she started to describe her life in Paris. To visit Paris had been one of her fondest wishes, she knew, long before they met.
She swiftly redirected the same question to Hetty, only to regret doing so as she launched into a long descriptive speech of just how splendid her life was now, how blissfully happy she was. She spoke of the expansion of the factories and various enterprises they owned, the vast wealth she and her husband had amassed. Of the holidays they spent in Newport with the likes of the Astors and Vanderbilts. That she and Elias had a solid marriage and a wonderful child and merry existence together.
“Hetty…” she said, interrupting her, no longer able to bear her overly bright smile or the lilting cadence of her voice that went just a note too high, nor the way she didn’t quite meet her eyes when she glanced over at her. Lucy knew that her pride in her young son was likely the one thing she meant whole-heartedly. The rest of it sounded empty and fabricated and like she wasn’t enjoying any of the trappings of her wealth at all.
She stopped and looked askance.
“My darling, wonderful Hetty, you're still an awfully terrible liar.”
She stared back at her aghast for a moment, flinching as though Lucy had just struck her across the cheek before her expression suddenly crumpled in shame. Her perfect posture slumped as she then bowed her head to stare into the depths of her tea.
Lucy stood and took both of their cups. Placing them on the desk, she returned to the settee, this time sitting down right beside her. She put her arm around her shoulders. “Mother already told me about Elias.”
“I…I don't know what to do,” Hetty said, her breath leaving her with a shudder. “He left everything in shambles. No one knows where he’s gone. I've been shunned by all our friends. And I can’t even enjoy the fact that Elias isn’t here to torment me, because on top of everything else, our lawyer told me a few days ago that, with him nowhere to be found, the responsibility of all his various misdeeds falls to me instead. My son and I could lose everything.”
“Oh, darling…” She murmured, sliding her other arm around her waist and encouraged her to rest on her head on shoulder as a few tears rolled down her cheek. “We’ll figure something out. There must be some way to resolve this.”
“George might have an in with the governor, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. Oh, Lucy, I’m so sorry to burden you with all this…” she said, hiccuping slightly as she sat up straight once more and tried to regather her wits.
“Shh. Don’t apologize.” Lucy felt a tremble sweep through Hetty as she brushed her thumb across her cheek to wipe away her tears. “Though perhaps it is I who should be apologizing? I shouldn’t have pried. I’ve only managed to upset you.”
She honestly wasn’t sure which was worse, the syrupy affectation in her voice as she spun her pretty little fantasy, or the abject misery that now permeated her entire being now that she admitted the truth.
Hetty shook her head and instead pressed her own hand to Lucy’s, holding it against her cheek as though it was her anchor, the only thing keeping her from floating adrift in a turbulent sea.
“No, no. I’ve had no one to talk to about this. Not that I’d be able to bring myself to discuss it with anyone else,” she said with a grateful yet sad smile. “You’ve been one of the few to visit, and the only one to see through the artifice…and you’re certainly the only one I suspect that I can trust right now.”
That she felt she could confide in her despite it all cast away her remaining doubts about making this visit. Hetty needed her right now.
Lucy gave her a watery smile in return. She leaned toward her, intending to place a comforting kiss upon her temple, but then Hetty tipped up her head and looked into her eyes.
Their lips met in a shy reunion that harkened back to their first cautious kisses in that paint-splattered studio, exquisitely aware of how impermissible their attraction to one another was. And despite the risks, they remained just as powerless to resist one another now as they were then.
The world fell away as they held onto each other. The sugar from her tea blended with the slight salty hint of tears on her soft lips, and Lucy flicked the tip of her tongue across them, wanting more.
Hetty gasped then, her mouth a perfect little “o” as she pulled away for a moment, her blue eyes darkened with desire. Then, with a small whimper, she lunged forward and suddenly Lucy found herself on her back, pressed into the cushions as her first and dearest love kissed her again, this time with a hunger that eclipsed even their most ardent embraces of yore. Hetty’s hands found purchase in her hair as they both clung to each other, lips parting as she moaned.
Lucy’s hips unconsciously started to rock against her thigh. She clutched at the soft silken skirt of Hetty’s tea gown and dragged it up her legs, desperate to touch her. Just as she lifted the fabric past her knees, Hetty suddenly sat up slightly, leaning on her forearms, eyes wide and panting. While she looked rather startled at the intensity of their shared desire, it relieved Lucy to see that she didn’t look the least bit regretful about it.
She reached up to twist her index finger around one of the soft russet curls that framed her face. "Come back to Paris with me.”
Hetty’s lips twisted into a pout and her voice cracked as she whispered, "I can't. Oh, god, I can’t."
But Lucy could see the yearning that burned in her eyes, for her, for Paris, for the chance of an escape. She slipped her hand to the back of her neck and pulled her down for another kiss, a gentle wordless plea.
Hetty collapsed against her and buried her face into her neck. "I shouldn't..."
Shouldn't wasn't no.
Lucy traced her index finger down along the line of her jaw, tilting her chin up and leaning up again to whisper against her lips. “Please, Hetty, please.”
“I have to think about Thomas first."
"Then bring him with you. He can still receive a fine education in Paris or anywhere else in Europe you wish to send him."
“Let me think about it.” She still sounded hesitant.
“Think about it, and then say yes.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Hetty said, her voice a frustrated whine.
“Because it could be. No one in Paris will know you, darling. It'll be a new beginning and we'd start it together. And we’d be so deliriously happy! Please say yes this time! Oh, Hetty, if Elias can run away from home, why can't you as well?”
She saw the word on the tip of Hetty’s tongue, but something still held her back. She decided to play her trump card.
“I’m supposed to board a ship back to Paris in six days.”
Hetty sat up with a despondent, panicked cry. “So soon?!”
“You and Thomas could meet me in the harbor and leave all your troubles behind,” Lucy said as she sat up as well. “Come with me and I can take care of everything else.”
She saw the uncertainty take hold of Hetty, her shoulders gone rigid under its unrelenting grip. It warred with the ache of longing in her eyes.
“Please?” She whispered as she took both of her hands and squeezed. “Give us a second chance?”
The strike of the clock above the mantle startled them both.
Lucy sighed as she realized how late it was.
“It’s almost supper time. Mother will be rather cross if I’m not there,” she said, her voice low and resigned as she stood up. “Do think it over, Hetty. You’ll send me a letter in a day or two with your decision?”
Hetty nodded as she rose to her feet as well, still holding on to Lucy’s hands. Her lower lip trembled.
She feared she already made up her mind. At least she’d have a few new memories, bittersweet though they’d be, to soothe the heartbreak of losing her yet again, she supposed.
She let go of her hands and began to turn away when Hetty’s sudden giggle broke the tension.
"Oh, Lucy. Your hair..." She covered mouth with her hand to muffle her laugh, her eyes crinkling in amusement.
Lucy stepped behind the desk to check herself in the mirror and couldn't help but laugh with her as she turned her head and saw the disarray. Several sizable locks of hair were pulled entirely from her updo. She could only imagine what her family would say if she appeared for dinner in such a state.
She started to reach up in order to fix it when Hetty stepped behind her and said, “Allow me."
Lucy felt a swell of emotion as watched her work. She swept the loose tendrils back into place, careful not to tug too hard or poke her scalp with the hairpins, her fingers and breath delicately caressing her neck as she reset everything back into place.
Their eyes met in the mirror as she finished.
Hetty looked lighter now. Hopeful, even. And Lucy could see it with great clarity, the little life they'd create together if she agreed to join her in France. She imagined walking arm in arm through the streets of Paris, introducing Hetty to the city of her dreams. There would be mornings where they helped each other dress, fixed each other’s hair, and took their breakfast on the balcony of her little apartment before convening to her studio. She’d have her favorite subject, her heart’s muse in her studio once more. Oh, the canvases she'd fill with Hetty’s image, no longer needing to rely on her wistful recollections alone. And then the nights they’d have together. Everything they could have this time without the threat of family to tear them away from each other anymore.
She felt Hetty take a deep breath and saw the determined look in her eyes and the small dimple in her cheek that appeared when she smiled. She took one small step forward and rested her chin on Lucy’s shoulder, her arms wrapping around her waist.
She knew her answer before she opened her mouth to say it.
“Yes.”
It was most unsettling watching one's own funerary proceedings. Hetty simply assumed everything would all briefly fade to black, then she’d find out definitively whether there was a heaven and a hell. Or that perhaps there would’ve been nothing at all.
She’d always enjoyed a good ghost story. She never dreamed they were true, and certainly not that it’d be her own fate to linger within an unseen realm.
The hushed murmurs between the mourners surrounded her, their whispers varying between sympathy for her situation and haughty disdain for her sinful final misdeed…though no one seemed to know the full story. No one seemed to be aware of the Woodstone empire’s legal troubles. Most assumed that she simply was too grief-stricken by Elias’ abandonment to carry on any longer.
She was a better actress than even she herself thought, she mused with a humorless laugh, if anyone here sincerely believed that her supposed love for her husband overcame her senses during her last moments. And even though she considered Elias’ continued absence to be one last insult to her dignity, she also was contradictorily grateful that there was a great deal of harsh judgment toward him for it. Perhaps a few of their peers might finally see him for the dishonorable cad that he truly was.
At least, everyone seemed to take a certain amount of care to keep their opinions out of earshot from Thomas. At eight years old, she knew he might not fully grasp what happened and why, but he was a sensitive child and just old enough to notice their critical tones. She prayed he remained with a cocoon of naivety for some time so that, by the time he was old enough to understand more, her death and his father’s probable abandonment would be long forgotten by the local gossips.
It hurt to look at him, seeing his sullen face as he sat in a wingback chair that all but swallowed his small frame. His little feet that couldn’t quite reach the floor swung listlessly as people swirled around the room. Occasionally, Margaret, who had taken the first train into New York upon receiving the news via telegram, stopped by to rest on the arm of the seat and check on him. She and her husband intended to bring him back to Michigan for a time while they waited to see if Elias intended to resurface. Hetty was grateful for that, for the protection that would offer him.
She weaved along the edges of the room for a time, before growing weary of having to veer away from the oft-times unexpected movements of the crowd. In the chaos that followed the discovery of her death, she’d learned a swift and excruciating lesson not to allow herself to come into any sort of contact with the living.
Though it was silly to feel such a way, she felt awkward within this sea of muted sea of dulled grey, navy, and black attire. Were anyone able to perceive her presence, the bright teal of her dress, nearly a decade out of step with current fashions with its bustle and tight sleeves, would’ve stood out tremendously. She remembered Marion eyeing her with confusion when she chose her dress that morning, only to nod with a bemused smile when Hetty reasoned that it could help her blend in better with the lower rungs of society whilst traveling.
She glanced down at the pristine, expensive silk. It probably would’ve been even more conspicuous, she realized. Oh, well. It hardly mattered now.
She retreated to the staircase as no one was using it, save for the occasional servant. From there, the chatter of the crowd became indistinct. She couldn’t bring herself to look away just yet, but she preferred to hear no more.
People came and went for a while. She made mental notes of those who did and did not appear. Some she knew, others she didn’t. Very few of the so-called “Four Hundred”, her supposed peers, showed up. Certainly not Mamie Fish, but also not Lina Astor. More of the employees from her factories paid their respects than her cohorts did…though in some cases, she suspected they only came to see for themselves she was indeed gone rather than out of any esteem or a sense of duty.
Her breath seized in her chest when she saw Eliza Pryor step into the foyer, Lucy trailing behind her.
She should’ve been on the ship to France several days ago. Hetty simply assumed she was. Foolishly, she’d hoped and assumed the news hadn’t reached her before she left for the city. She’d much preferred deluding herself into believing that Lucy surely thought she and Thomas either never made it to the ship on time or that her cowardice, as it had twenty years ago, won the day again.
Not this. Never this.
While Mrs. Pryor swept into the parlor to offer her condolences to Margaret and chat with the other mourners, Lucy lingered just outside the room. Her normally rosy cheeks were ashen and her eyes reddened from tears. Several times, she started to step forward only to falter and fall back. Her lower lip quivered every time she caught a glimpse of Hetty’s casket.
Hetty couldn’t fault her for that. She didn’t like looking at it either.
For all the relief she felt in the last few days, knowing she ultimately saved the Woodstone fortune and protected Thomas from a life of poverty and strife, a sudden deep well of shame and regret swelled up within her as she watched Lucy now.
Strange thing, that. She could not be seen. She could not touch anything beyond what remained on her ghostly form. She could not be felt.
But she could still feel. Every emotion she still experienced with the same vivid and exquisite awareness as though she still had breath within a corporal body.
“Miss Pryor?”
Lucy turned to find Marion behind her. She clutched a crumpled envelope in her shaking hands.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Woodstone intended for me to deliver this to you on the afternoon that she passed. I…was not able to follow through with that request under the circumstances, but I assume she wanted you to have this.”
“Oh, Marion, no! Please don’t!” Hetty rushed across the foyer, forgetting for a moment that the woman couldn’t hear her. “You’ll just make it worse for her!”
Lucy stared down at Marion’s outstretched hand, at the envelope with her name upon it in Hetty’s elegant script. She looked half-terrified by the letter’s possible contents as she accepted it.
“You're most welcome to use the library if you need a moment,” Marion whispered.
She nodded. The maid led her across the room.
Hetty darted into the room just before Marion closed the doors in order to allow Lucy some privacy. Her newfound ability to walk through anything solid still unnerved her.
Lucy all but collapsed onto the settee, looking to her right where Hetty sat right next to her just a few days ago. A small sob bubbled out of her, soon followed by the flood of tears she’d been holding back since she arrived at the manor. Her slender frame shuddered as she muffled her keening wails with her handkerchief for several long minutes, too overcome by grief.
“I’m sorry. I'm so very sorry, Lucy.” She desperately wished she could still touch her cheek, brush away the tears she had caused, to hold her and kiss her and promise her it would still be alright. If only she could make her presence known in any sort of way so she could soothe even just a little of Lucy’s anguish. “I’m sorry...”
But Lucy remained unaware as Hetty perched herself on the arm of the sofa and watched her. Her own tears rushed down her cheeks, only to dissipate shortly after they fell past her jaw and onto her bodice.
Once Lucy’s sobs subsided somewhat, she slowly opened the envelope and unfolded Hetty’s note. She whimpered the moment she started reading, almost immediately slapping the page down on her lap.
Hetty winced as she leaned in to remind herself what she wrote. The first sentence was an unintentional yet deeply unfortunate phrasing on her part, she had to admit.
I must depart a little sooner than previously planned.
Indeed.
Lucy regathered her wits after a long moment and lifted up the letter once more to continue. She gasped as she read further.
“Oh, Hetty…you didn’t actually…”
“I didn’t plan this, no,” she whispered. “I never intended to leave you.”
George had stopped by again the previous evening with a message that the governor’s hands were tied and he would not be able to offer any reprieve nor leniency. He’d championed the new law, after all. He simply couldn’t pardon one of its worst violators. With Elias gone, there was no way around it. They had to use her, his proxy, as an example instead.
She hardly slept that night and arose before dawn to spend the day in a tizzy trying to make the necessary arrangements, fluttering about the mansion trying to decide on the necessities she needed to pack. Considering the money she needed to withdraw from the banks. How she’d retrieve Thomas from his boarding school. How to let Lucy know she needed to hasten their travel arrangements.
She finally settled on a letter, hurriedly scrawling out the note Lucy now held. She’d just handed it to Marion with strict instructions to have it sent to Lucy as promptly as possible, but only a few short minutes later the maid returned. She hadn’t made it past the gate before seeing the police officers charging down the path toward the manor, their destination clear.
She watched as Lucy read on and absorbed the rest of the letter, a tremulous smile forming on her lips when she read the last paragraph. She still wept but some of the tension left her, and she looked more at peace than when she first arrived. Her fingers danced across Hetty’s closing and signature before she lifted the note to her lips and kissed it.
“I love you, too, Hetty.” Lucy gazed upward as though she were directing it toward her, hopeful thing that she always was. “Thank you.”
It was Hetty’s turn to sob.
Lucy remained on the settee for another five minutes, trying to slow the fall of her remaining tears enough to rejoin the other guests. She finally tucked the letter into the pocket of her skirt before she rose and stepped toward the mirror behind the desk. She lifted the black crepe the undertaker had draped upon it and inspected her blotchy features. With a sniffle, she dropped it and looked just over her shoulder. Hetty knew she was remembering how she’d stood right there and held her as she made that last promise, the one she ultimately failed to keep.
Another deep breath and Lucy left the library, crossing the foyer once more. This time, she stepped into the parlor. She still tried not to look toward the casket but she managed to cross the room. She stopped when she reached Thomas.
Hetty lingered in the doorway, the room still too crowded for her to navigate without being walked through. She watched as Lucy knelt down and spoke with him. After a brief exchange, she whispered something that managed to make her son respond with a tiny smile for the first time in days.
She pressed a hand to her chest. Had they made it to France, Lucy would’ve been a splendid second mother to him, she realized, probably better than she herself was.
It was difficult for her to imagine Paris. She only ever saw glimpses of it in the occasional photograph or drawing, almost always of the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe. But even with her limited knowledge, she still found herself trying to picture what her life might’ve been like with Lucy and Thomas there. She thought of them strolling through Paris, adorned in the finest Parisian garments and jewelry her money could buy. She envisioned a home full of Lucy’s art and of laughter and joy echoing through its halls. There would’ve been extravagant dinners and late evenings curled up together by a fireplace and lazy late mornings.
All that would’ve been, should’ve been if she’d been a little braver or acted with more haste.
After the funeral, after her burial in the family plot on the edge of the property, after she watched as Margaret and Marion pack up Thomas’ belongings, with Reginald and the few remaining staff loading the carriage before they left as well…that desperate, regret-tinged fairy tale she told herself carried her through the long, quiet, and cold months that followed.
My dearest Lucy,
I must depart a little sooner than previously planned.
I will be leaving late this evening with the aim of arriving in Cornwall first thing in the morning in order to retrieve Thomas from boarding school. I will explain everything in further detail when we see each other again.
Thomas and I can either meet you in the harbor on Thursday morning, or you are most welcome to join me on the trip tonight if that would suit you. Please send word with Marion of your intentions so I can plan accordingly. I intend to leave by sunset.
Regardless of your decision, words cannot express just how much I anticipate our reunion and the journey ahead of us. Whether it be tonight or in two days, I am overcome with a sense of joy I haven’t felt in many years that we’ll be hand in hand together in the coming days. Thank you, dear heart, for returning at just the right moment.
With all my love and devotion,
Hetty Woodstone