“She did not give me her name.”
“Would you recognize her if you saw her, sir?”
Stuart did not reply.
“That’s her.”
Stuart looked down to see an open locket thrust his way. A sudden, overwhelming reluctance seized him. He wanted to push the locket back. He’d built a Taj Mahal of a shrine around the memories of his Cinderella, and he liked it just fine. And so much time had passed. And sometimes truth did no one any good at all. And—
He looked; he couldn’t help it. There were two photographs in the locket. One was of Michael and his parents. The other photograph was of Michael, four or five years younger than he was now, and a woman in her late twenties who wore a jaunty straw boater trimmed with a pair of Mercury wings.
He didn’t recognize her immediately. Perhaps because her cheeks were no longer hollow, her chin less pointed. Perhaps because the image was in sepia and his memories of her were saturated in color—her eyes, blue as the shallow water surrounding a Maldives atoll; her lips, a rose in full bloom; her hair, the gold of the Incas. Perhaps because he’d always thought of her as infinitely vulnerable, whereas the woman in the photograph brimmed with confidence, her gaze direct and strong.
It was her eyes that broke the last of his resistance. He did not want to recognize her. He did not want to find out, at this too-late juncture, that Cinderella and Madame Durant were one and the same. But it was no use. He knew those eyes, knew them and loved them too well.
He handed the locket back to Michael. A perspiring porter, shoulders strained, pushed a cart of steamer trunks past them. A weary-looking young matron hurried two beribboned little girls along, promising puddings and new dollies at the end of the journey. An elegant older couple strolled by, the wife’s hand on the husband’s arm.
Stuart slowly realized that Michael was watching him, waiting for him to say something. What could he say? That for half of his adult life he’d been in love with a figment of his own imagination? That she could have found him and told him the truth at any point during the past ten years but chose not to? That once wasn’t enough, she had to break him one more time?
“That’s her,” he said.
“Here, Mademoiselle Porter, let me do it,” said Verity.
She hadn’t been able to sleep after the encounter with Michael and Marjorie. So she’d taken Marjorie’s hat from her room, opened the package of the ribbons she’d bought for her girls for Christmas, and retrimmed Marjorie’s tatty hat. And then, to be fair, she’d done the same for Becky.
She took the hat ribbons, tied them smartly under Becky’s chin, and turned Becky around to the mirror. Becky gave a delighted squeal. “Oh, thank you, Madame.”
Marjorie, on the other hand, stared at her altered hat in bewilderment. “Where’d my hat go?”
“That is your hat, Marjorie,” Becky said impatiently. They’d gone over the point a dozen times already. “Madame made it pretty for you.”
“It’s not my hat,” Marjorie said stubbornly.
Verity sighed. How could she have been so stupid? She should have known Marjorie would be distressed rather than pleased to find that a familiar belonging had mutated without warning. “You are right, Mademoiselle Flotty. It is a different hat. Your old one is at home. We are going home now; we’ll find it there. Now put on the new hat so we may leave.”
They’d already said their good-byes to the other servants earlier in the day, before the latter left to enjoy their Sunday off. Now they descended the service stairs and exited the empty house via the service entrance.
“Will we take the tube today, Madame?” asked Becky, as they climbed the steps that led up to Cambury Lane.
“The tube will have your dress and your hair smelling of motor grease, Mademoiselle Porter,” said Verity. “We are better off taking th—”
Stuart. He was crossing the street, coming toward the house. Verity turned on the step, but Marjorie and Becky crowded the way down. She glanced back at him. He looked directly at her.
The contact of their eyes was a shock that crackled all the way to the soles of her feet. But the paralysis was hers and hers alone. He continued his stroll, the motion of his walking stick fluid and unhurried. There was no surprise on his face. There was nothing whatsoever.
Perhaps he hadn’t recognized her. But even so, he should have inferred her identity—how many middle-aged women were likely to emerge from the service entrance to his house?
“Madame?” came Becky’s hesitant voice.
Verity was blocking their way. She moved, on feet that felt like wet plaster, and reached the curb at the same time he did. Behind her, Becky curtsied, hissing at Marjorie to do the same.
“Madame, a minute of your time, if you would,” he said without stopping.