12 The Family Way (18 page)

We asked about how we might find transportation out to their house and were told there was a livery stable in town where we might find someone willing to drive us. We went straight there and rented what looked like a rather rickety buggy. Gus assured me that she would be able to drive it splendidly and Sid looked confident in her abilities, so I hoisted Bridie up to join them and we set off. I need not have worried. The tired old nag was not capable of going beyond a walking pace and it took us a good hour to cover the ground to the Robbins estate. It was indeed a fine-looking house, a veritable Hudson mansion, built in the manner of a French château set amid manicured lawns, and I wondered at people like this sending their daughter off to the grim convent. They must have wanted to punish her very badly.

A servant came out at the sound of our approach and led the horse away while we went inside to a cool front hall with marble floor. A maid went off to summon her mistress and almost immediately we heard the tapping of heels on the marble floor and a thin woman in a severe gray dress came out to meet us.

“May I help you?” she asked, taking in the cut of our clothes and no doubt Sid’s cropped hair.

“I’m sorry to intrude but we were hoping to find Miss Emily Robbins here,” I said. “Is she at home?”

“She is,” the woman replied, “but I’m afraid she is occupied with another visitor at the moment. Her fiancé, Mr. Clifton, is here and they are going through wedding plans together.”

“Her fiancé, how lovely,” I said. “I hadn’t realized that she had become engaged.”

“Are you friends of hers?” the woman asked. “I don’t recall meeting you before.”

“You must be her mother. We are friends of a friend, who recommended that we give our best wishes to Emily as we were making a tour of this area,” I said, keeping as close to the truth as possible.

“So you’re not from these parts then?” Mrs. Robbins asked.

“We live in New York City,” I said. “I am currently staying with a family member in Elmsford.”

“And your connection with Emily?”

I was tempted to say that we met her abroad recently, knowing of the lie they had perpetrated about her. I wondered how she would handle that. But she saved me from having to come up with a lie by adding. “From school, I presume.”

“That’s right,” I said. “From school.”

At that moment there was the sound of feet on the marble floor and two people came down the long corridor toward us. One was a pretty, young dark-haired girl; the other a ruddy-faced, robust middle-aged man. When Emily’s mother had mentioned her engagement I had hoped that she might have been allowed to marry the father of her child. But I hadn’t expected this old and unattractive man. Surely he couldn’t be the one?

As he bent to give her a kiss on the cheek I watched her flinch and knew that he wasn’t. I guessed she was being rushed into marriage for respectability’s sake and to get her away from the house where her family found her presence repugnant.

“I’ll come for you in the morning then,” the ruddy man said. “And you can take a look at the furnishings for yourself. We can change the wallpaper if it’s not to your taste.”

Emily nodded, looking at us with interest.

“How kind you are, Mr. Clifton,” Emily’s mother said. “Emily, where are your manners. Thank your fiancé for his kindness.”

“Thank you, sir,” Emily muttered.

“And look here, Emily, my dear, you have visitors,” her mother said. “Apparently old school friends.”

I expected her to say she’d never seen us before in her life. I said quickly, “We weren’t exactly friends at school, but we shared a friendship in common with Maureen.”

“Maureen?” she asked, her eyes darting from one face to another.

“Your friend Maureen. From school. She asked us to pay a call on you, on her behalf.”

I saw a flicker in her eyes and she said. “Of course, I remember now. Maureen, from school.” She emphasized the last word. “And I do remember you now. You were all in the senior class when I first arrived and you were so kind to me. How nice of you to look me up again.”

“I’ll be off then, Emily, my dear. Good-bye. Until tomorrow,” her fiancé said.

“Good-bye, Mr. Clifton,” she said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Call him John,” her mother admonished.

“Good-bye John,” Emily called after him in a mechanical voice. “Thank you for coming over.”

Eighteen

As Emily’s fiancé went down the front steps she turned back to us. “Would you care to take a walk around the grounds? We have a pretty little lake and I know your young charge will like to see the ducklings.”

She didn’t wait for her mother to reply before she ushered us back to the front door and out into the sunshine. As soon as we were well clear of the house she took my arm. “You have news of Maureen?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting to hear from her. She promised she would write. Is she all right? Where did she go?”

I looked at her hopeful face and felt terrible. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve no news of her. That’s why I’m here.” Then I added hastily because I saw the agitation in her face, “My name is Molly Sullivan. I was asked by her family in Ireland to trace her and I’m trying to find out where she went when she left the convent.”

“Oh.” She looked so horribly disappointed. “Then you don’t know anything about her. I so hoped that you had come with a message from her. I don’t understand why she hasn’t tried to get in touch with me, unless Mama has been intercepting all my mail—which I wouldn’t put past her.”

Our feet crunched on the gravel as we walked along a well-raked path between rose beds; Emily and I in front, and the others following at a respectful distance behind.

“I went to inquire at the convent but they couldn’t tell me where she had gone. Only that she had run off without saying good-bye. However, I gathered that you were her friend. So I wondered if she perhaps had a secret plan and might have shared it with you.”

Emily shook her head. “I thought she was going back to those people. What was their name now?”

“The Mainwarings,” I said.

She nodded. “That’s right. Mainwaring. She didn’t want to. She said she hated it there, but it was better than nothing. And in fact Mrs. Mainwaring came to the convent the day before Maureen ran off. I know it was she because one of the sisters mentioned her name.”

“But she didn’t leave with Maureen at that time?”

“No. I don’t believe Maureen even saw her. She came to see the sisters. I do know Maureen was furious afterward and said Mrs. Mainwaring couldn’t be trusted.”

“Did she say why?”

Emily shook her head. “You have to understand that we had almost no time to ourselves. Everything we did was monitored by the sisters. We weren’t allowed to talk and Sister Angelique was always snooping. It was like being in jail.”

“I know a jail,” Bridie chimed in brightly. “It’s called Sing Sing. Were you there?”

“No, Bridie,” Gus said firmly.

I realized that there were aspects of this conversation that Bridie should probably not overhear, now that she was old enough to understand. “Now why don’t you go and see if you can find the ducklings,” I suggested.

“I think I can see them over there.” Bridie skipped off happily.

I gave Emily an apologetic smile. “I didn’t want her to overhear,” I said. “So you have no idea why Maureen ran off suddenly?”

“I was as surprised as anybody. I looked for her at breakfast that morning and I asked if she was not feeling well. Sister Jerome sent someone back to our dormitory and she had gone. Sister was furious.”

“Had anything happened that would have made her run away like that? Apart from not wanting to go back to the Mairwarings. Had she perhaps received a letter?”

“Nothing that I know of. We were both due to leave that week and we were both dreading it in a way. We couldn’t wait to be out of that place, but we really didn’t want to return to our previous situations. She promised she would come and see me and we joked about running off together and opening a tea shop in a small town, and then coming back to rescue our babies. She really loved her baby and she was furious at having to give it up.”

“Do you know who adopted the baby? Maybe she went there.”

“We were never told. Sister said it was better that we didn’t know; better to make a clean break. One moment our baby was with us, the next it had vanished.”

“So nothing happened just before she ran off? Nothing at all you can think of?”

She paused, staring out over the lake on which swans were swimming. “There was one thing,” she said carefully. “She had an awful row with somebody the day before she left. I heard her shouting. She said, ‘I’ve made up my mind. You can’t make me do it and I won’t. I won’t go through with it. You can’t make me. It’s cruel.’ Then a door opened and she came running out. I tried to stop her and ask her what was wrong, but she just pushed past me and ran away.”

“Was this row while Mrs. Mainwaring was there?”

“I’m not sure. It might have been.”

“And you didn’t know who she was arguing with or what the argument was about?”

“I never got the chance to speak to her again,” Emily said. “The next morning she had run away.”

“Oh, dear,” I said. “I had hoped that there was a happier reason—that the father of the child had come for her and they had run off together.”

“No. It wouldn’t have been that,” she said. “I know she wanted nothing to do with him. If any of us had had any hope, any other possibility, we’d never have gone to the convent. It is a place of last resort for those who have nowhere else to go.”

“You don’t think she would have tried to go back to her family in Ireland then?”

She shook her head firmly. “She always said she could never go home. She was too ashamed.”

“Can you think of anyone else she might have confided in? Was she close to any other girl there?”

Emily sighed. “She was rather a reserved person—kept her thoughts to herself. She never said much about her home or family. Well, none of us did. It was as if we were afraid to get close to anyone, or to trust anyone. We never knew which of the girls might be Sister’s spies.”

I was startled at this. “Sister Jerome, you mean? She treated you cruelly?”

“I meant Sister Angelique.”

“Who was she?” I asked.

“Sister Jerome’s assistant. She was brought across to us when Sister Francine died and Sister Jerome was training her. Sister Jerome was cold and strict, but at least you knew where you were with her. Sister Angelique was just downright mean and reported back to Jerome. She had her favorites, and she could be quite charming. But if she didn’t take to you—watch out. She was spiteful in small ways. If a girl was afraid of mice and rats, she’d make her work down in the cellar, which was full of them. She’d withhold food as punishment. She’d stick one girl with washing the dirty diapers day after day. And she’d hand out favors to those who were compliant.”

“It sounds like a horrible boarding school,” I said.

“Not like my school,” she answered. “I loved my time there. I was never happier.”

“So there is no other girl you can think of who might know where Maureen went?”

She shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone she would have confided in. I was really her only friend. She was my only friend.” She had been staring out at the lake, but looked up to meet my eye. “Look, I wish I could help you more. I want to find her as much as you do—more than you do. She was good to me when I was in that hateful place and went through…” She glanced down at my own round shape. “Well, you know,” she said. “You can imagine.”

“I’m sure it must have been awful for you.”

We had reached the shore of the lake. Sid and Gus came up beside us. Emily turned away and stared across the water again.

“It seems that some nightmares never end,” she said. “Some people are destined for happiness while others aren’t.”

“Your fiancé?” Sid said. “I take it he was not your choice.”

“Would you marry a man like that if you had a choice?” Emily demanded fiercely. “You saw him. He’s repulsive and old. And he paws me with those big meaty hands. It’s almost more than I can bear.”

“Then refuse to marry him,” Gus said. “They can’t force you to marry against your will.”

“Unfortunately they can,” Emily said. “My mother still hasn’t forgiven me for disgracing her, and they’ve made it quite clear that I am no longer welcome in the family home. It is to be a quick marriage to Mr. Clifton, whose lands adjoin ours and thus is advantageous to us, or I am to be cast out, alone with no money. I’ve nowhere to go. No money and no skills. So actually it’s a choice between life and death.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She pressed her lips together as she nodded. “My only consolation is that he’s old. He can’t live forever, can he? But then who knows how long I will live? I almost died when I had the baby. There is no guarantee I’d survive a second delivery.”

“Is there no chance of being reconciled with the baby’s father?” Gus asked gently.

Emily shook her head. “He went away.”

“And you haven’t tried to get in contact with him again? You wouldn’t want to see him again?”

“Of course I’d want to,” Emily snapped. “It’s impossible, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry,” Gus said gently. “We have no right to pry. I just hate to see a woman being treated so unjustly.”

“He said he couldn’t marry me.” Emily squeezed her eyes shut as if she was trying to hold back tears. “He was a young English painter. He came to paint the river and my grandfather saw him and thought he was pretty good. So he let him stay in one of the outbuildings on the estate while he worked. We met and fell in love. But he had no money. He said it was for the best that he went away. I didn’t know I was with child until he had gone.” She paused. “It wouldn’t have been any use anyway. He couldn’t have supported us. Not like Mr. Clifton with his fine big house.”

Sid glanced at Gus. “Emily, listen to me,” she said. “If you really don’t want to marry this man, maybe we can help you.”

“How can you help me?” Emily asked angrily. “Why should you want to help me? You don’t know me from Eve.”

“That’s an easy question to answer. We are passionate about the rights of women. It angers us to see someone like you treated so unfairly.”