And it is her decision. An afternoon at the typewriter could end all this. Yet we spend this long, dreary day in more insufferable silence. I finish my book. Lenora stares out the window. The day fades into dusk, which darkens into night.
Eventually Archie arrives, carrying dinner on a tray. Salmon and sweet potatoes that are roasted for me, mashed for Lenora. On the side are piping-hot rolls for me and a chocolate milkshake for Lenora.
“I thought Miss Hope could use a pick-me-up,” Archie explains. “She loved them when she was a girl.”
The gesture is so thoughtful it takes me a second to remember that he could have killed Mary. It doesn’t matter that Archie looks about as threatening as a teddy bear. He was here when Lenora’s family was murdered in 1929, and he was here when Mary plummeted off the cliff.
Yet that also makes him a perfect source of information about both of those nights. The challenge is figuring out if Archie’s a friend or a foe, a suspect or a potentially trusted resource. For now, I decide it’s best to treat him as all of the above.
“You didn’t need to go to all the trouble,” I say, taking the food from his hands. Because I haven’t yet attached Lenora’s meal tray to her wheelchair, I set it on the sideboard next to her snow globe and the cassette Jessie gave me yesterday.
“It’s no trouble,” Archie says. “Besides, I wanted to see how Miss Hope is doing.”
I glance at Lenora, who acts like neither of us is in the room with her. “Not too well.”
“I think that goes for all of us,” Archie says. “Poor Mary. Had I known she was hurting so much, I would have tried to help her somehow. And then the cliff giving way like that. These are not happy times at Hope’s End.”
I wonder if there’s ever been a time here that was happy. From what Lenora has written, I’ve gathered the place was doomed from the start.
“The other day, you told me that you and Lenora used to be close.”
“I did,” Archie says. “And we were.”
“How close?”
“Best friends, I guess. Although that was more from proximity than anything else. We were roughly the same age in a place where that wasn’t common.”
“What about Virginia? Were the two of you also close?”
“No. Can’t say we were.”
His answer, refreshing in its swift honesty, makes me decide to continue the conversation. It might be risky—and I might eventually come to regret it—but if Archie’s currently in a talkative mood, I’m not going to stop him.
And Lenora, I know, is listening, even though she pretends she isn’t. I retrieve the Walkman, pop in the latest book-on-cassette from Jessie, and put the headphones over Lenora’s ears. I lodge the Walkman itself between her motionless right hand and the side of the wheelchair so it won’t slide off.
“A new book from Jessie,” I explain to Lenora. “Would you like to listen to it while I talk to Archie? After that we’ll have dinner.”
Knowing she’s not going to respond, I press play and turn back to Archie, who says, “What else do we need to talk about?”
I hesitate, trying to think of the best way to phrase my question. After concluding that there’s no good way to pose it, I blurt out, “Did Lenora have a baby?”
“A baby?” Archie stares at me, perplexed, like I’ve just asked if she had two heads or a pet rhinoceros. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Lenora made a passing reference,” I say, nodding toward the typewriter on the desk. I figure it’s fine to give Archie an indication that Lenora can use it. He might already know.
“What have the two of you been doing on that thing?”
“Just getting to know each other better,” I say, presenting the truth in its simplest form. “I like to learn about the people I’m caring for.”
Archie eyes me with skepticism. “And she told you she had a baby?”
“She hinted at it.”
“You must have misunderstood her.”
“So Lenora was never pregnant?” I say.
“Never.”
Apparently done talking, Archie turns to leave. I pose one last question to his retreating form, hoping to get if not an honest answer, then at least an unconscious reaction.
“When you were close, did she ever mention the name Ricardo Mayhew?”
Archie’s formidable frame comes to a stop in the doorway. “No,” he says.
“He used to work here.”
“I know,” Archie says. “But Miss Hope never mentioned him. There’s your answer.”
He starts moving again, walking stiffly into the hall. Only then does he face me again, his hard stare a silent warning.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t spend too much time typing with Miss Hope,” he says. “The past is in the past. It does no one any good to start digging it up.”
“The baby just kicked.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“It did, I swear,” Archie said, his hand still pressed to my swollen belly.
I pushed it away. “I think I’d know.”
It was another Tuesday night with the rest of the household staff gone and my family scattered. Archie often spent those nights off in my room, where we’d laugh and talk and dream about the future. It was a ritual we had performed almost since he first started working at Hope’s End.
By that September, though, the ritual had become a rarity. In the past few months, Archie and I had spent little time together. He’d grown distant, and I worried it was all my doing rather than his. I’d neglected him terribly since meeting Ricky, so my decision to tell him of my pregnancy was an attempt to involve him once again in my life.
He was happy for me, but also concerned. As I told him my plans for the future, he pretended to be pleased, but worry lines kept rippling over his brow.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said. “With someone like him?”
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
Archie leaned against me on the divan, our shoulders touching. “You know exactly why.”
“It’s a tricky situation,” I said. “But we have a plan.”
We didn’t yet, but I couldn’t tell that to Archie. I knew it would only make him more concerned. He had always seen himself as my protector. Even when we were younger and he was just a runaway given a job in the kitchen out of pity. I think that’s what drew us to each other. We were two lonely souls in need of someone to care for.
“I wish you had told me you were sweet on him,” Archie said.
“Why?”
“Because I would have tried to stop you.”
“Stop pretending like I’m the only one in a tricky situation,” I said. “I know what you’ve been up to.”
“It’s not the same,” Archie said, and indeed it wasn’t. The only situation more scandalous than mine was Archie’s.
“I knew what I was getting myself into when I met him,” I said, when in truth I had no idea how deeply I’d fall in love with Ricky and how quickly it would happen.
“That’s one thing. Having a baby is another.” Archie reached for the camera he’d just purchased. An extravagance I knew he couldn’t easily afford. Buying it required months of saving. “I know of someone who can help, if you decide you don’t want to have it. A doctor.”
“Who told you this?”
“One of the maids. She went to him when she got pregnant. She couldn’t keep it because the father--”
Archie stopped himself, too kind to speak aloud the truth we both knew.
“Was my father,” I said. “I know.”
I’d heard Berniece talking about it in the kitchen one morning when she thought none of the High and Mighty Hopes was around. That’s what she called us. The High and Mighty Hopes, always spoken with a derisive snort. She mentioned that one of the new maids had been ruined by my father, forced to get rid of the baby and then kicked out of Hope’s End.
That was the previous year, and based on the compromising position I’d caught him in on my birthday, my father hadn’t learned his lesson. Although no one said as much, I knew it was one of the reasons my mother kept to her own bed. She and my father barely spoke, let alone saw each other.
It made me sad to see them so miserable with each other. My sister, however, merely pretended nothing was wrong. I knew it was pretend because it was impossible to miss the tension strung like trip wire throughout the entire mansion.
“I won’t end up like my parents,” I said. “I’ll make sure of it. I love him, Arch. I really do.”
“Well, I wish you didn’t.”
I wasn’t hurt by Archie’s words. I knew he didn’t say them to be cruel. It was simply his way. He had a gentle soul and told things the way he saw them, unlike most everyone else at Hope’s End.
“If things were different, you know I’d have chosen you,” I said.
“I know,” he replied. “But they are different. With me and with him. People like us and people like you and your sister--we’re not meant to mingle. Society won’t allow it. The longer you let this thing go on, the worse it’ll be when it inevitably ends.”
I sat up, adamant. “It won’t end.”
Archie raised his hands in surrender. “I believe you. But whatever happens, good or bad, know that I’ll be with you the entire time.”