the stories I have heard of his women. Such things are not for your ears, of course, but surely you will agree that, in light of past events”—Chadwick smiles—“even with a chaperone it would be most unwise to put you in temptation’s way.”
He leans close, lowering his voice confidingly. “And yet even if those things were not of concern to me, I have still another reason for not letting you stay here. What reason? Why, my child, surely you’ve guessed? You must have realized that once you were well enough to leave this place your home would be with me? Signor Alfieri’s desire for this house and my plans for you have coincided beautifully.”
She is suffocating, dying. Swiftly, now, the walls are moving in—now a shutter slamming shut, now a door locking fast. She is going to be sick …
“I see that happiness has made you pale,” he says to her white face. “And you should be happy. Who is more suitable to be your new guardian than your late guardian’s dearest friend and counselor, after all? Who would know—who could know—better than I what he wanted for you? And I am certain the court will see it that way too, my dear. The petition to have you made my ward is already filed, and I expect a favorable decision within a fortnight. And while my house is not so grand as this, it is more than adequate for the two of us. There I will be able to watch over you, and see that you grow well again, and strong. You must believe me, dear child, when I say that your health is the most important thing in the world to me.”
Rising to stand behind her chair, he lays his heavy hands on her shoulders, letting the thumb of one hand stroke her neck.
“You see now how much I care for you, don’t you, my dear?” He bends low to murmur it, his breath against her cheek. “How happy we will be with a single roof to shelter us! Nearness fosters tenderness, you know. And you will call me ‘Uncle’ again, and someday, perhaps … well, we must wait and see what the future will bring.”
She closes her eyes. “Please … please, Uncle Chadwick, I am so grateful … but, please … I would rather stay here.”
“I am certain of it.” His lips move against her ear; his hands tighten on her shoulders, holding her still. “And I don’t care.”
Letting his hands fall from her, he rings for a servant, then lights a cigar, idly following the blue smoke as it curls into the air.
“Clear the table, Margaret,” he says when the maid appears. “I’ll be leaving in a moment. And see that your uncle waits for me in the hall; I need to speak with him and I don’t intend to hunt him down all over the house, as I had to do last time. Should he not be there when I come down, he needn’t stay on the premises after today.”
The maid curtsies and vanishes to convey the message, and Chadwick turns back to Clara, sitting dumb and motionless.
“And now, child,” he says, bending over her, “it is time for me to go. Your singer’s attorney will be waiting in my office to discuss the purchase of this house. I would not wish to keep him waiting … not too long, at any rate. And as for your singer, I will ask his attorney to give him your farewell. I do not think you will be seeing him again.”
Always he kisses her upon arriving and departing—it is his custom—and today is no different, except that here, too, there is a change of venue. Seizing her face between his hands, he kisses her mouth roughly, prolonging the pressure when she recoils and tries to pull away.
“Two weeks from today,” he says, stroking her cheek, “you will come to live with me. Didn’t I promise always to take care of you? You see how I have kept my word. Even now your room is being prepared … a pretty bower just for you, my child … and so very near to mine. What need have we for chaperones, you and I? It does my heart good, you know, to think how relieved you must be, now that you have nothing more to fear.”
The maid, coming in with a tray a few minutes later to clear away the dishes, finds Clara curled in her window seat, sucking in great breaths of fresh air from the garden.
“It’s his big cigars, miss,” the maid volunteers as she scrapes and stacks the plates. “They do stink, don’t they? The smoke stays in the curtains for days …” She looks up from her tray. “Why, Miss Clara, it must’ve took you awful bad—your eyes are watering dreadfully!”
Clara, her head against the window frame, sees no reason to contradict her.
THE NEWS OF CLARA ADLER’S imminent removal from Gramercy Park will cause hardly a ripple among those members of New York society who had followed the course of her illness with such devotion. For one thing, anyone capable of doing so has abandoned the city for summer quarters, leaving only a handful of the elect behind to marvel at the idea of Chadwick—who loathes domestic encumbrance in every form, and enjoys no one’s company so much as his own—suddenly assuming familial responsibility in the form of a ward.
For another, the girl herself, since being reduced to the status of a penniless dependent, has ceased to be of any interest other than as a lingering oddity, and has come to be viewed in the same light as any other exotic creature housed by a wealthy owner to prove his eclecticism and the depth of his purse. One may expatiate upon a potential heiress at great length and in vast detail; one does not, however, spend any time at all discussing a pet monkey or a tame peacock unless the beast has done something untoward, such as savaging one of the servants; and unless Miss Adler turns upon Chadwick’s household in a similar fashion (the chances of which seem relatively improbable), the public’s fascination with her is not likely to be rekindled any time soon.
Outside of Clara herself, then, there are only three persons in the world to whom it matters that she is soon to disappear beneath Chadwick’s roof: Daniel Buchan, who, despite his expectation of just such an outcome, finds Chadwick’s intransigence galling in the extreme; Stafford Dyckman, who is concerned because Alfieri is, and also because his chivalrous young soul is roused at the rather romantic notion of a maiden in distress; and Mario Alfieri himself.
But the problem is more simple and direct for Alfieri than it is for either Buchan or Dyckman. Her loneliness calls to him, stirring something that has lain silent for years.
There had been a young woman, once, about Clara’s age. How long ago? Before the world changed, before he had become “the nightingale.” Her eyes had not been trusting—she had known too many beds before coming to his, and too much betrayal—but she had clung to him the same way, out of need, and he had loved her …
He is young no longer and the world has changed, and Clara is young enough be his child; he has met her only twice. But when she clings to his hands the old years are come again, and all the lost joy with them, and he is a better man, a gentler man … a kinder, more worthy man … and the thought of losing her is like Lazarus, dying a second time; he will not be raised from the dead again. God has given him his last chance.
The knowledge, therefore, that she will soon be beyond his reach—for there is not the faintest breath of hope that Chadwick will allow him to call upon her—has him staring into nothingness for most of the night after Buchan tells him the news, restlessly pacing from room to room, and rising early the next morning. Three o’clock is the appointed time for his return to Gramercy Park, and the hours between are all but unendurable.
The precious sophisticates of his world, the ones who know too much and care too little, how they would laugh at him! He has slept badly, and awakened in a jangle of raw nerves—he who can nightly face the close attention of a thousand pairs of eyes and ears with as little anxiety as another feels crossing the street—because of a young woman who does not know who he is, but says “I like you very much” with her heart in her eyes.
He fills the empty time by walking, even though the day is wet, first to St. Stephen’s for Mass, then to Stafford Dyckman’s club for an hour or two of absentminded conversation and a luncheon remarkable chiefly for the level of Alfieri’s distraction. Shortly before three o’clock, he