noise of the street and, very soon now, the noise of a little child. She stepped into the masculine space somewhat timidly, for she had a strong sense that it should be his refuge. But Elizabeth, in her lacy, high-necked smock and black linen skirt, her blond hair rising like a hazy pillow over her fine forehead, was the product of a decade of assiduous grooming. The man whose proposal had saved her and her child deserved to benefit from her well-honed feminine abilities, too.
“Can I help you, Mrs. Cairns?”
The housekeeper, Mrs. Schmidt, a fastidious widow in middle age whose late husband had been for many years an employee of Snowden’s, had come up behind her and was now lingering in the doorway. She appeared just slightly displeased that the lady of the house would be poking about.
“Mr. Cairns said I was to see that you don’t overexert yourself, and to make sure that all of your needs are met while he is out on business….”
Elizabeth rested her hand on her considerable belly and tried to let a certain glowing kindness light up her heart-shaped face. Excepting the case of Lina Broud—who had been the final lady’s maid of her life as a debutante, and with whom she had sparred mightily—she had always had a nice way around the help.
With Mrs. Schmidt her gentleness seemed to hold no special power, however; the two women had yet to strike a natural ease in their relationship.
“No, I’m all right, but thank you.” When the older woman did not budge, Elizabeth added, almost apologetically, “I wanted to put Mr. Cairns’s study in order myself.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Schmidt replied, although still she hesitated until Elizabeth gave a firm gesture of dismissal with her pointed chin.
When she was gone, Elizabeth busied herself with the arranging of pens and paper on her husband’s broad desk and the placement of several objets d’art. She turned over in her mind which of the taxidermied heads lining the walls she could persuade him to do away with, for though Snowden was an outdoorsman, and though she did not want him to abolish that aspect of his character, she felt that as his wife, she owed him the benefit of her rather excellent eye. The animal trophies did not, in her opinion, belong in such a genteel home. When the room was finally starting to appear tended to by a steady feminine hand, she turned to a box of papers that needed sorting.
The ordinary activity of putting a house together had calmed Elizabeth, but that steady, neutral feeling file://C:\Documents and Settings\nickunj\Desktop\book.html 10/28/2009
Page 24 of 128
evaporated when, after carefully filing several bank statements and business documents in the drawers of the large walnut desk, she glimpsed her own name as it had been written during the first eighteen years of her life. And not just her name, but along with it the name that she chanted in her thoughts each night before going to bed—the name that she still thought of as hers, too. Her brown eyes grew large.
A letter to Stanley Brennan, who had once been her family’s accountant, was clipped to the document, and the bit that caught Elizabeth’s attention read: Please have the deed for the California property transferred—immediately and jointly—into the names Elizabeth Adora Holland and William Keller. The signer of the letter was her late father; it was dated a week before his death, and posted from the Yukon Territory. Her heart had begun to thud and her vision was growing blurry with tears. Still her eyes lingered there. Even the sight of Will’s name brought to mind the picture of him in a new brown suit on the day they were married, the last time she remembered feeling anything like pure joy. It was another few moments before she was able to collect herself and read the rest, and thus to realize that the paper she held was in fact the deed to a bit of land she knew quite well.
She could not begin to understand why her father would have put her and
“Can I help you, Mrs. Cairns?”
The housekeeper, Mrs. Schmidt, a fastidious widow in middle age whose late husband had been for many years an employee of Snowden’s, had come up behind her and was now lingering in the doorway. She appeared just slightly displeased that the lady of the house would be poking about.
“Mr. Cairns said I was to see that you don’t overexert yourself, and to make sure that all of your needs are met while he is out on business….”
Elizabeth rested her hand on her considerable belly and tried to let a certain glowing kindness light up her heart-shaped face. Excepting the case of Lina Broud—who had been the final lady’s maid of her life as a debutante, and with whom she had sparred mightily—she had always had a nice way around the help.
With Mrs. Schmidt her gentleness seemed to hold no special power, however; the two women had yet to strike a natural ease in their relationship.
“No, I’m all right, but thank you.” When the older woman did not budge, Elizabeth added, almost apologetically, “I wanted to put Mr. Cairns’s study in order myself.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Schmidt replied, although still she hesitated until Elizabeth gave a firm gesture of dismissal with her pointed chin.
When she was gone, Elizabeth busied herself with the arranging of pens and paper on her husband’s broad desk and the placement of several objets d’art. She turned over in her mind which of the taxidermied heads lining the walls she could persuade him to do away with, for though Snowden was an outdoorsman, and though she did not want him to abolish that aspect of his character, she felt that as his wife, she owed him the benefit of her rather excellent eye. The animal trophies did not, in her opinion, belong in such a genteel home. When the room was finally starting to appear tended to by a steady feminine hand, she turned to a box of papers that needed sorting.
The ordinary activity of putting a house together had calmed Elizabeth, but that steady, neutral feeling file://C:\Documents and Settings\nickunj\Desktop\book.html 10/28/2009
Page 24 of 128
evaporated when, after carefully filing several bank statements and business documents in the drawers of the large walnut desk, she glimpsed her own name as it had been written during the first eighteen years of her life. And not just her name, but along with it the name that she chanted in her thoughts each night before going to bed—the name that she still thought of as hers, too. Her brown eyes grew large.
A letter to Stanley Brennan, who had once been her family’s accountant, was clipped to the document, and the bit that caught Elizabeth’s attention read: Please have the deed for the California property transferred—immediately and jointly—into the names Elizabeth Adora Holland and William Keller. The signer of the letter was her late father; it was dated a week before his death, and posted from the Yukon Territory. Her heart had begun to thud and her vision was growing blurry with tears. Still her eyes lingered there. Even the sight of Will’s name brought to mind the picture of him in a new brown suit on the day they were married, the last time she remembered feeling anything like pure joy. It was another few moments before she was able to collect herself and read the rest, and thus to realize that the paper she held was in fact the deed to a bit of land she knew quite well.
She could not begin to understand why her father would have put her and
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