Legacy of Secrets (34 page)

Two weeks later Lily woke in the middle of the night and knew that the dreaded thing was happening. She called urgently to Mrs. Sheridan, who wrapped herself hastily in a woolen dressing gown and came running.

“It’s not going to be so bad,” Lily told herself bravely at first. “It’s really not too bad. I can bear it.” But the hours dragged on and the pains grew worse and more frequent and she screamed with anger, wishing the baby dead and herself with it. After fourteen long hours the child was finally born and she lay as limp as the corpse she wished she were. When she heard it cry she clapped her hands over her ears in horror. It was real. The baby was there.

Mrs. Sheridan wrapped the infant in a soft blanket and held it out for her to see. “It’s a boy, Lily,” she said, her voice filled with the wonder of birth, “and such a handsome little fellow with hair as black as your own.”

Lily shut her eyes tightly so she would not see it; she pressed her hands harder against her ears so she would not
have to hear it, and when Mrs. Sheridan tried to lay the baby next to her she pushed it away.

The doctor said that her agitation would upset her milk, but it turned out she had no milk for the child. “It’s as though she had willed it,” Mrs. Sheridan said somberly as she gave the baby a bottle.

“Better not upset her anymore,” the doctor warned. “Just keep the child away from her until she comes to her senses.”

Lily lay in bed with her face turned to the wall, speaking to no one. Now the baby was gone from her, she knew she would have to leave as soon as possible. And therefore she must eat and get stronger so she could run away.

Still refusing to look at her baby, she remained in bed for two weeks forcing down the nourishing meals prepared for her by the anxious Sheridans. She knew the times of the sailings to the mainland, but she had no money to get there and nowhere to go when she did.

The baby’s loud cries echoed through the house and though Mrs. Sheridan never said anything to her, she would look hopefully at her and Lily knew she was thinking that soon she would come around and accept her own child.

She decided to go to Boston. It was the nearest big city and the Sheridans would never find her there, and now she knew where to get the money. She waited until everyone was in bed and then she stealthily opened her trunks. She stared at the heaps of useless silks and satins that seemed to have belonged to another girl a lifetime ago and then she packed a few of the more practical things into a straw basket. Tucked away down the side of the trunk she found her valuable set of silver hairbrushes, and with them, in a monogrammed silver frame, a picture of the family, grouped on the steps of the Big House. She held it under the lamp, gazing tearfully at them. She could remember the day the photograph had been taken as though it were yesterday.

She and Ciel had been ready to go out in the little jaunting
cart. Pa and Mammie had come to wave them off when suddenly William had rushed out with his new photographic equipment, tripping over his tripod and the mysterious black box. It had taken him ages to set it up and even then he had stuck his head under the square of black cloth and fiddled about for so long that Pa had roared furiously at him to get on with it! And, oh God, yes, wasn’t that Finn holding the pony’s head, smart in his striped groom’s waistcoat and brown breeches. She could almost feel the warm morning sun on her back and Pa’s hand clasping hers and hear the pony crunching the apple Finn had given it to keep it from dancing impatiently around while William took his picture.

She placed the photograph carefully in her straw basket along with the silver brushes that she was certain she could sell for a vast amount of money. After she got to Boston she would figure out what to do. But she certainly was not going to be a maidservant. Not she, Lily Molyneux.

She knew Alice Sheridan kept the money she saved from her weekly housekeeping in the old brown teapot on the dresser shelf, “for use in emergencies.” Telling Herself this was an emergency, Lily took five dollars from the teapot and wrote a little note saying she was sorry but it was the only way. She promised to send the money back as soon as she could and said that she would also send money to help pay for “the child,” and that she hoped they would care for him and give him the love she never could. She thanked them for their kindness and said she would never forget them.

That morning, before dawn, when the house and even the squalling infant were still quiet, she took her straw basket and crept silently down the stairs and out the front door, which was never locked, and hurried on shaking legs through the sleeping town to the wharf.

There was a ship sailing for Boston on the dawn tide and she parted carefully with three of her five dollars for the fare, putting the rest safely away in her pocket. As she
watched the island disappear into the swirling morning mist she knew that a chapter of her life had finally closed and now a new one could begin. And surely, she thought, it could not be any worse.

I
COULD SEE
E
DDIE
was listening, fascinated, to my revelations of the past. He glanced at Shannon, sitting beside him on the sofa. An orange cat purred on her lap and she stroked its soft fur automatically. She looked sweet and vulnerable and very young, and I knew what he was thinking: that Lily must have looked the same way.

Eddie knew she was looking for the truth about her father and was hoping that the story of her family’s past would help her find it, and I could see how much he wished he could help her.

“Maybe I should fill you in on Ned’s background,” he said, “if you think it will help find the truth about Lily.”

We sat up and took notice. “Oh, please,” Shannon said, “I’m dying to know more about him, he sounds so … so in love with her, and so nice.”

“Maybe he was, I don’t know. But he was young and naive and crazy about her.”

Eddie’s arm slid along the back of the sofa behind Shannon’s shoulders, and I saw their eyes meet in a long, intimate glance. It was one of those private looks between two people no one else is meant to see and I turned and threw another log on the fire, kicking it into a blaze with my silver-sandaled foot.

“Better get on with it,” I said briskly.

Eddie laughed; he knew what I was thinking. “I’ll tell you the story as my grandfather told it to me,” he said with his beautiful deep actor’s voice that must have been so like Ned’s. Somehow it brought the past to life for us again.

T
HE DE
L
OWRY
P
LAYERS WERE PLAYING
New Jersey when Jacob de Lowry told Ned angrily, “You either stay or you go!” His ferocious black brows formed a straight line as he glared at him. “How can I be expected to put on a successful show when one of my actors is so moonstruck with love he cannot keep his mind on what he is doing? For God’s sake, lad, aren’t there enough women for you in every town we play?”

He would have fired him there and then except he knew the audiences liked him. Ned got the most applause of anyone, including himself and Sasha, and it was for more than just his looks. Ned Sheridan had talent.

Jacob was looking sixty in the face. He was tired of traveling, but he could see no way out, with his company floundering from one weekly financial disaster to the next. He often thought of how pleasant it might be to retire to a nice little house on the bluffs above the Hudson River where he knew many stars had homes. It was within striking distance of Broadway’s bright lights, and he could join the Lambs Club and attend first nights with Sasha on his arm, both of them dressed to kill. But how to do it? That was the problem. There was no money in the kitty and there wasn’t likely to be any soon.

Sitting in front of a spotted mirror in a chilly room in a cheap New Jersey boardinghouse, Jacob studied his profile, turning to the left and the right, tilting back his head to escape the jowls threatening to overhang his high collar.

“You’re getting old, Jacob,” Sasha said from the bed where she was ensconsed in a nest of fluffy satin pillows that always traveled with her. Like Jacob, she was not good-looking, but she was handsome and, like him, she knew how to flaunt it. Only each year it somehow got harder. She was younger than her husband, in her late
forties, but she was also thinking longingly of a cosy cottage with roses around the door and maybe a cat curled up by the hearth. They often talked about retirement, endlessly figuring out ways to come up with sufficient money, but it always depended on the next month’s engagements, and then the next, and each was always as unspectacular as the last. Except lately, with young Ned Sheridan in their troupe, people were beginning to sit up and take notice.

“You should give Ned a bigger role,” Sasha said suddenly. “Let him play the lead.”

Jacob swung around, staring at her, astonished. He said angrily, “I have always played the leads, Sasha. My audiences expect it.”

“Not anymore they don’t.” Sasha lit a cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring into the chilly air. Snuggling deeper into her pillows, she said cruelly, “Let’s face it, Jacob, it’s Ned the audiences are looking at in his tights, not you. In case you haven’t noticed there’s something about him that draws their eyes like a magnet.” She patted her fluffy bright blond hair and yawned. “It’s not just you, Jacob, it’s me too. The men are looking at Ned instead of at my tits. And you know what that means, Jacob? It means he’s got star quality.”

Jacob decided to ignore her jibe about getting old and concentrated instead on the new thoughts springing into his mind. He had seen every stage star there was and he knew talent when he saw it. He knew they were lucky to have Ned. His threat to fire him had been bravado on his part because he knew the boy would be taken on by any actor-manager with eyes in his head and even half a brain.

There was no doubt Ned had talent and looks, but he was also naive.
“The hick,”
Sasha had dubbed him when she had first seen his eager straw-blond handsomeness and gentle manners. Of course, he was an educated hick, but he was naive in the ways of the world. Ned was still blinded by the glamour of the theater and he hadn’t been around long enough for reality and disillusionment to set in.

“He needs good management if he is to become a star,”
Sasha said, yawning, “and he’ll never get that working with us, Jacob, so you needn’t worry he’ll run off and leave us in the lurch.”

Jacob thought about what she had said and he suddenly saw a whole new, easier world opening up to him. A world where he need no longer be the aging actor-manager, trailing his underpaid ragbag of artistes. Ned Sheridan depended on him for his employment. He believed every word he said, and Jacob had said plenty, telling him grandiose tales of theaters he had never played, dropping names of the stars and famous theater managers he claimed he knew. Ned Sheridan knew no one else in the theater world. And Ned Sheridan trusted him.

Jacob canceled his own appearance for the next night and told Ned he was to go on in his place. “It will do you good, my dear boy,” he said, throwing a friendly arm around Ned’s shoulders. “I have some business to attend to in New York. There have been offers for my services….”He waved his cigar airily, giving the impression that a dozen New York theater managers were standing in line for him. Then he sighed and said, “How I wish I were your age again, Ned. There are so many great roles out there, perfect for a young good-looking leading man like you.” Ned looked eagerly at him and Jacob tapped ash from his double Corona reflectively. “Of course, a person needs
connections
to get those tip-top parts. And naturally, after all these years, I have those connections.”

He stared coolly at Ned. His piercing dark eyes were unfathomable and Ned did not even wonder why, with his “connections,” Jacob was still playing seedy little theaters in the sticks. He was his only contact with the big time and he wanted it badly. “Do you really think there’s a chance for me in New York, Mr. de Lowry?” he asked eagerly.

“That would mean deserting the Players, my boy.” Jacob scowled. “Have I’not been a good employer? A good
friend
to you? Has not Jacob de Lowry taught you everything you know?” He threw his hands in the air and cried dramatically, “And now you want to desert me.”

“Oh, no! No, sir, I don’t!” Ned would have begged de Lowry on his bended knees for even the smallest chance with one of his “connections.” “But you said yourself there were so many good parts for men my age. And I just know I have the talent to prove myself. All I need is the next step.”

“If
I were to provide that step, then naturally I would expect to be recompensed for my loss,” Jacob said, twirling his cigar between his fingers and looking thoughtfully into the distance. “There must be some suitable way, of course. There always is….”

“Anything, sir,” Ned offered as the bright lights seemed to creep closer.

“Then I have the perfect answer,” Jacob said quickly. “I shall become your manager. I shall handle your career, dear boy, and with my connections and your talent you will go far. To the very top, I don’t doubt. And believe me, there’s no better place to be,” he added importantly, as though he knew all about how it felt to be on the pinnacle of success.