What is it?”
“I met Miss Adler today.”
There is a brief silence. “That is not a question, signore.”
“No, Mr. Chadwick, it is not.”
“Would you care to tell me the circumstances of your meeting?”
“Gladly. Miss Adler was feeling better than usual this morning, or so she told me. She thought that a walk, to build up her strength, would do her good. You know, of course, that she will not go outside—not even into the garden—for fear that someone will see her unfortunate hair. She decided, instead, to walk in what she calls the ‘shut-up’ part of the house. I fear that she is not so well as she tries to be, Mr. Chadwick. She became tired and could go no further, entered the music room and fell asleep. And that was where I found her.”
“You would make an excellent trial witness, signore. You are succinct and very clear. Did you speak with Miss Adler?”
“We had tea, Mr. Chadwick, and spoke, yes.”
“In her room?”
“In her sitting room.”
“Of course. And just what is it you wish to ask me about Miss Adler?”
“Just this: I am prepared to make over one whole wing of the house for her exclusive use, and to provide her with a staff and a companion—a duenna, or chaperone, if you will—so that she need not leave the home she is accustomed to. She told me that you have made arrangements to have her moved elsewhere once she is strong enough to leave. She is frightened, Mr. Chadwick, and very much alone, and she does not wish to go. She is not of age, and you are her late guardian’s attorney, and so I appeal to you. Will you permit me to do this?”
“Signor Alfieri, if your attorney comes to see me, and we find that the house is in fact for sale, and we discuss terms, and you are able, somehow, to meet those terms, and you buy the house, then you may do whatever it is you wish to do with it, including pulling it down around your ears. Miss Adler, however, is another matter entirely, which I have no intention of discussing with you, either now or in the future. I bid you good night, sir.”
Alfieri listens to Chadwick’s departing footsteps until they are lost against the distant sounds of a waltz coming from the ballroom beyond the conservatory. After several minutes, another figure disengages itself from the shadows and takes Chadwick’s vacated seat.
“Forgive my intrusion, Mario, but when I saw him leave and you did not follow …” Alfieri does not answer, and the speaker says quietly: “Is it that bad?”
Alfieri shakes his head. “I fear that Mr. Chadwick and I will never be friends, Stafford. He is not an agreeable man and I—stupidly—let him provoke me.” His tone is bitter. “You said your attorney was eloquent? He will have to be a perfect Cicero to win for me now.”
“You tried your best, Mario.”
“And failed.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, yes I do. He will not discuss the matter with me under any circumstances. That is what trying my best has led to—”
“Then let Buchan handle it. I have seen him win the most amazing battles. Leave it until tomorrow.”
“—I could cut my tongue out!”
“Mario, Buchan knows him. Let him deal with it.”
“He does not care that she is afraid. How could he not care? How could anyone be harsh with her? Such a small child, Stafford … such eyes. Did I tell you about her eyes?”
“All afternoon, Mario.”
Alfieri turns to his friend, his smile returning. “You think I have gone mad.”
“I think you have been struck by lightning, as they say in Italy. Are you in love with her?”
Alfieri’s laugh is incredulous. “I? In love with a child? My God, Stafford, are there not women enough in the world? You think that now I must start with little girls?”
“She’s not a child, Mario … I understand she’s nearly twenty.”
“An old lady, certainly! But only if one is your age, ragazzo.” Alfieri shakes his head again. “Stafford, you know my family. My youngest sister—the baby, Fiorina—will be twenty on her next birthday. When she was born I was twenty, and already singing leading roles. How could Miss Adler be anything more than a child to me? And a little child, at that … when I first saw her I thought she was fourteen and no more.”
“Then why this concern for her?”
Alfieri shrugs, his smile fading. “Can you see a child in pain, and not try to help it? Some can, maybe … Mr. Chadwick, perhaps. But I cannot. And then …” He stops, thinks, shakes his head again. “I tell you, Stafford, there is something about her. She is so like … and yet not …” He raises his hands, then lets them fall, helpless, to his sides.
“Let it go until tomorrow, Mario; wait and see what Buchan can accomplish. There is nothing more to be done, certainly not tonight. Besides, all of New York must be wondering where Mrs. Astor’s guest of honor has gone.”
“You are right, my friend,” the tenor says, as they make their way back to the ballroom. “At least I know that little Miss Adler is not in any distress now. Only musicians—and the very rich—turn night into day. At—what time is it?—two o’clock in the morning?—most of the world, and especially children, are in their beds and fast asleep.” He lifts two glasses from the tray of a passing waiter and hands one to his friend. “To our success, Stafford, and her sweet dreams.”
REST OF ANY KIND, whether of mind or of body, has always eluded Clara. She cannot remember a time when sleep has come easily for her; perhaps it never has. Even in childhood, in the many beds and the many rooms of the many houses in which she had passed her years—more than a visitor, less than a guest—sleep had been a stranger. What wonder, then, that now, in her forfeited bed, in the room that is no longer hers, in the house she will soon leave forever, it should continue to pass her by.
She has left her childhood very far behind her; but she lies now, in her warm bed, as she did then, under the thin blankets and the mended sheets, in the hot rooms or the drafty ones; lies awake and staring at the chink in the curtain where morning glimmers like a star, listening to the birds wake and call—such a lonely sound—in the twilight world outside.
What was it he had said that morning? “You deserve a better life.” She had thought so, once. “My dear child,” he had said. “Have you no family to return to? No one at all?”
“No one.”
“No parents? No brothers or sisters? No relations of any kind? All dead?”
“Yes,” she had said. “All dead.”
“Then where will you go? Has anyone told you?”
“No.”
“How can you bear not to know?”
“They will tell me when it is time.”
“Haven’t you asked?”
“No. It doesn’t matter.”
“My dear, if that doesn’t matter, then what does?”
“Nothing.”
He had looked at her so pityingly. He had been so kind. He will take the house—he had told her so—and she will move on once more.
It occurs to her, now, lying in the gray light, that he must think her mind unsound; must believe her despair to be both symptom and proof of madness.
Not so. Her mind has already passed through that shadowy realm, like a soul sinking into hell, and fallen out the other side. To go mad again would mean an ascent, an upward journey; but she has tumbled out of madness