Chapter Twelve
“IT IS ANOTHER ONE, MISS STONE.” The maid thrust the paper into her lap. Lilith ignored it, the telegram fluttering to the ground.
“Oh, for God's sake, Lilith, pick up the piece of paper and read it!” Esther demanded, marching into the room.
Lilith stood and walked slowly toward them mantel, then flung the telegram into the fire.
“No! Miss Stone! You don't know what it says!” the maid exclaimed, red faced with horror and embarrassment at her rudeness to her mistress.
Lilith turned slowly toward the girl, eagle-eyed and somber. “I should think that is the point of burning it, you ninny.” Esther shooed the young girl out of the room, who was only too pleased to escape.
“Have you burned them all?” Esther asked.
“How do you know there are more?”
“Because the man was in love with you. If he sent one he's sent a hundred. He tried to reach you at the ship before you returned – he is determined!”
“Why does he torment me if he is, as you claim, in love with me?” Lilith said, her voice without affect, as cold as an ice cube on a spine. Chilling and calculated and horrifying at once.
Esther snorted. “Because that is how love works. Or so I am told. Love isn't rational.”
“I caught him in bed with Maria Escola. After proposing to me. And he dares beg forgiveness?”
“It makes no sense, Lilith.”
“It doesn't have to.”
“But it should! Why would he put you through the travel if only to be in another woman's arms? Why would he chase you down to the ship and leave notes? You said he shouted from the docks for three days before your ship left port. You can't see how intent he was on reaching you?” Lilith saw the maid's eyes widen with Esther's words.
“I have been trying to understand that for the eight months I have been home, Esther. If you can decipher the puzzle, I am all ears.”
Esther shook her head sadly, a shock of grey hair flopping with vigor. “I keep thinking that your father has something to do with this.”
Lilith snorted, her first real expression of emotion all day. “My father didn't make James and Maria sleep together in a hotel room in Chile.”
“No, he didn't.” Esther conceded the point. “But Lilith, it's so fantastical. The man proposes and then, after making you travel so far – ”
“Don't you think I don't know that, Esther?” Lilith's voice was so high it nearly rasped, the screech of despair thinly veiled by ingrained good manners. “That my mind hadn't turned in on itself, racing like a rat in a circular cage? That I haven't spent countless hours and sleepless minds reliving every moment, trying to grasp the exact moment during which I failed?”
“You failed?”
“Yes! I failed to protect myself. When we left McLean I swore no man would hurt me again. I failed.”
A creak in the floorboards outside their door startled Esther. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head and made her way to the door, yanking it back. Lilith expected to see one of the gossips on staff.
Instead, Esther uncovered a very guilty-looking Jack Reed.
“Just what I need,” Lilith muttered.
“Just what no one needs,” Esther joined her. Then she upped the ante. “Mr. Reed, I didn't know that you had become a regular Sherlock Holmes. Holmes never joined forces with Moriarty, though.”
Lilith stifled a giggle.
Reed didn't get the joke.
“That means that by working with John Stone you are choosing the bad man,” Esther said slowly, as if explaining a simple concept to a very young child.
He blinked rapidly.
Esther threw her hands in the air. “I give up. What do you want? Are you spying on Lilith? Is the snake plotting yet another way to lock her up?”
“What snake?” Reed asked, genuinely perplexed.
“The one you work for.”
“The one I – ” He suppressed an annoyed look, then bowed slightly toward Esther. “I would like to speak privately with Miss Stone.”
“Come to finish what you started last fall?” Lilith asked.
He blushed furiously but said nothing.
“Too late.”
“Lilith, I don't think that shade of scarlet appears in nature. Mr. Reed must be half lobster.”
“He's half something, Esther, but I'm not sure what.” Esther made a joking face and walked out of the room.
“Why are you here?” Lilith asked flatly.
“You're moving soon.”
“Yes. My father told you?”
“To Toronto.”
“Yes. As soon as my money is mine.”
He began to fidget, reminding Lilith of James in his too-tight boots. Reed opened his mouth, then closed it, sighed, then groaned.
“What is it?”
“You need to know something. It's not right to let you move and not know.”
A prickly cold blossomed at the base of Lilith's neck. “What has he done now? I am weeks from my twenty-fifth birthday. How will he use the law this time?”
Reed shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. “There is nothing he can do with your money. You'll inherit on your birthday.”
“Oh.” She relaxed and regarded Reed with disdain. “Then why are you here?”
“It's about James.” Now the prickly feeling returned.
“What about him?”
“He – you – your father...” Reed's voice trailed off as he stammered.
“Out with it!”
“Your father intercepted your acceptance telegram. And sent one in its stead. A rejection. James never received the telegram you wrote.”
Esther burst into the room, obviously having eavesdropped on the other side of the door. “I knew it! I knew that man had something to do with this!”
All of the energy in Lilith's body pooled into her ankles and made her drop to the floor. “I...he...what?”
“Oh, Lilith, he did this. You!” Esther shouted, pointing at Reed. “Tell us exactly what happened.”
Reed turned a ghostly pale shade. “Your father had me intercept the telegram you sent,” he whispered. “And replace it with one that rejected James' proposal.”
“Oh, my God,” Lilith whispered. She stared at Esther, finding the same horror in her eyes, but also a kindness and a compassion she saw from so few.
“What did it say?” Esther asked.
“What did what say?” Reed replied.
“Does your mother remind you to breathe every day when she dresses you?? You have the sense of a toad. What did your telegram say?”
“It said no. That Miss Stone couldn't live that life.”
“So why was he with Maria Escola when I found him, then?” Lilith's brain began to clear, her legs gaining strength.
“Mr. Stone asked her to go. Said it would accomplish his goal.”
“Which was?” Lilith asked weakly.
Now Esther snorted. “Your emotional destruction, apparently.”
“Well..” Reed started to argue and dropped his voice immediately
“And you let her travel to South America? Under false pretenses? You knew that Mr. Hillman would have spent all those weeks thinking she had rejected him?”
Reed squirmed. “I'm telling you now.”
“You shameful snake,” Esther spat.
Reed replied by walking out of the room, turning back at the last minute. “I'm sorry, Lilith.”
“Why are you telling me now?” she whispered, red-rimmed eyes aching from tears and disbelief.
“Because I thought you ought to know before you move to Toronto.”
Esther hovered over Lilith, who now felt like a small pile of bones and flesh, empty and full at the same time. She stared up at Reed, then narrowed her eyes. “He fired you again, didn't he? You have nothing to lose.” Esther dropped her jaw. “Or an heiress to gain? Are you trying to curry favor?”
Reed straightened his spine, the gesture less of offense and more of uncertainty. His eyes darted nervously around the room and, once again, Lilith berated herself for nearly delivering her maidenhead to him.
“I knew it. Get out.” Esther threw her hat at Reed. It ricocheted off the doorway and into the hallway as he scampered down the hall. The maid picked it up and stepped nervously into the room.
“Miss?”
“Get the coachman ready. I need to send a telegram,” Lilith announced, standing and smoothing her skirts.
Esther beamed, a smile Lilith hadn't seen since their adolescence.
Dear James,
I fear you won't believe this, but ignore my last telegram. Father stole mine and replaced it with that lie. I do accept. I know why Maria was sent to you, too. I forgive. Please reply.
Love, Lilith
James sat up and reached for a glass of water. A wet cough claimed him and he shuddered. The doctors said that the mines were taking bits and pieces of his lungs from him, one breath at a time, cough by cough, and that the sickness claimed most saltpeter miners.
“You need to go back to the United States,” his doctor had told him. “They can help you there.” Yet James had too much to do in Chile. His first payment had cleared, with more zeros at the end than he'd ever seen in his life, and without the decimal point for the dimes and pennies. Wiring money to his parents had been a moment of triumph, though the telegram he'd received in return had been cryptic.
Thank you Mr. Hillman. Won't spend.
What? The whole point was to spend the money! Ah, Ma. Three more cables and she seemed to understand that this wasn't money to hold on to for James. He had more than enough. This was for them to spend. And how he wished he could see their faces right now.
Then Lilith's face flashed before him.
He sank back in the pillows, hacking.
Maria floated into the room, a telegram peeking out from her pocket. “What's that?” James rasped. Maria had run the telegrams for him; his lungs hurt too much to walk far. After Lilith's unexpected appearance Maria had left, but reappeared a week later. His decline in health had been sudden, and he was grateful for her help.
“This? Oh, nothing,” she said, voice tight.
“Ma and Da writing more?”
“No. It's from my father,” she said, her voice curt.
“Oh.”
She poured a shot of pisco and handed it to him. “Here. This will relax your muscles. Help the cough.” He drank it gratefully, coughed when it burned his throat, and promptly fell back to sleep.