And the start of it all. Florence.
When Birdie had arrived at the Cutter house the night of the engagement party, she had gone to the kitchens to say hello to the staff that still remembered her. And there she had taken a single champagne glass and smeared the inside with a barely visible layer of poisonous silver polish. She’d held it all night, hoping to switch it with someone else’s.
Remember what Florence said? “Trying so damn hard not to be yourselves.” Even she saw what you couldn’t. Jasper trying to rise out of obscurity. Me wanting a life I couldn’t have. And you! You were the worst. You pretended you had all you wanted when you had nothing.
I didn’t suggest solving Florence’s murder. You did. It was easy to choose her as the first to die. Did you know I overheard her planning on ruining your party? On spreading a vicious lie that you were having an affair with Jasper and me at the same time? Oh, it was so dark that it would ruin your reputation. Well before I arrived, I planned to give you the ultimate engagement gift—something to bring you and your old chums together and liven up your dull life. And in time, Holly would enter your life and you might find her worth fighting for, when I couldn’t anymore.
So before we all went upstairs, I gave Florence my champagne glass. She treated me like a servant and took it without thinking. And when she was dead, I gave you the spark, and you breathed on the ember, like I knew you would. I put the note in your book on cyanide when no one was looking. I was good at leaving bread crumbs for you to follow.
With Andrew’s help, I started removing the obstacles to Holly’s path to a better life and the obstacles for all three of us. The atrocity that is your father. Jasper’s drunkard uncle and my mother, the whore. And Andrew. He’d never have let Holly stay in your home. Sweet Andrew, so gluttonous for my soul, he was all too willing to kill for me. He would have eaten me alive if I’d let him.
I deserve their companionship in hell.
But there is one good thing that has come from all this horror: Holly, now in the home she deserves. I shall cling to that one redemption for eternity.
Allene had to put the letter down to her lap several times while reading it. It was all so much, and there was no Birdie to scream at, to plead with. She missed Birdie, and yet that sentiment was altogether at odds with the truth. What was more, Allene felt responsible. If Birdie and Hazel hadn’t been thrust out of their home years ago, their circumstances wouldn’t have become so dire. She should have fought to keep them here. She could have protected Birdie.
And then there was the truth about Holly. Birdie’s daughter. Birdie didn’t hold back in the letter. She spoke of dates, and hospital records in the women’s ward, and details about Allene’s father that were altogether obscene. Allene didn’t want to believe any of it, but Holly’s face told the truth. The little girl had Allene’s own indefatigable inquisitiveness and the coloring of a Cutter woman. A brown-haired shadow at the foot of Birdie’s brilliance, just like Allene had always been. She was astonished at how lies had entirely filtered her vision for the last several weeks. Years, even.
“I’ve been living with monsters,” Allene said, looking at Jasper with a feeling that was half disgust, half profound emptiness.
“We both have.”
“Oh, Jasper. How am I to tell Holly the truth someday?”
“I don’t know.” He put his hand into Allene’s. “Good God, I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 34
November 21, 1918
Allene had spent far too much time at cemeteries this year, but there was hope that this would be her last graveyard visit for a long while.
Holly’s tiny, gloved hand hugged Allene’s skirted leg. A crow cawed in the distance, an oddly fitting avian farewell from a consummate trickster and harbinger of death. The fall leaves had made their descent, and the trees stood in stark emptiness, a contrast to the crisp blue sky overhead.
Before them, the newly turned soil rested over Birdie’s casket. No priest or pastor had accompanied the farewell. A small stone had been placed at the head of the plot. Carved into it was simply:
BIRDIE ABIGAIL DREYER
1900–1918
There was no epitaph. There wasn’t room on the small stone, and it would have been too difficult to write the proper words. Allene had thought of several but didn’t disclose her thoughts to anyone.
Holly tugged at her arm. “Does it hurt to be buried?” she asked.
“No, dear. Birdie is sleeping away for eternity. She can’t suffer anymore.”
“Sleeping is nice,” Holly said, before going quiet.
Allene was glad of the silence. In the distance, she spotted her father’s stately obelisk, and over the next hill, unseen to her, was the Biddle mausoleum. Somehow, it seemed fitting that her father, Andrew, and Birdie would share that same plane together, perhaps yelling ghostly complaints over each other’s early demise.
It would take a while before she could even think of her father in any way but with roiling disgust. Forgiveness for him was not in her repertoire right now. She didn’t spend time wondering if it ever would be. After all, the murmurings in her small world were now all about the ignominy of the Cutter family. It had been in the papers everywhere for a week or two. There were others to do the wondering for her; she had to spend her time more wisely.
Jasper had declined to attend their visit today. Birdie’s body had been kept at the coroner’s office for over a month because they still couldn’t understand why her body had fallen apart in such a dizzying variety of pathologies. She had been released for burial only yesterday. Father’s funeral had been a month ago. Hundreds of mourners had attended and gawked at Allene, Holly, and Mrs. Cutter, who’d dragged herself down from Saratoga to attend. She and Allene had tea, then met with the lawyers. She kissed Allene on the cheek, shuddered at the sight of Holly at her side, and took the next train back to Saratoga. If there was any chance that Allene’s mother would reenter her life, it died the moment Allene announced she was using a substantial portion of her inheritance to create a trust fund for Holly and was legally adopting her.
“I knew he’d never touch you,” Mrs. Cutter said, waving her gloved hand dismissively at Allene. “He’s not interested in Cutter women in that way. He did his duty and then never laid a finger on me again.” Duty. She meant Allene, didn’t she? Which made Allene’s own conception sound like a dull moment in a tiresome factory.
But Allene was inured to her mother’s distance and disgust. When she told her mother of her plans, her mother gave her a look of shock and opened her mouth to argue, but Allene shut her down.
“My life. My money. My decision.”
And with that, her mother had picked up her purse, motioned to her attendant, and headed to the train station without a word of good-bye.