How his parents’ deaths had left him penniless because of the taxes, how he had left for Florida to make a fortune for us. Because of course he wouldn’t take money from Father, oh no! He was too honorable for that.
And Sophie believed this story, all of it. Bless her dear, innocent heart. She held my hand and told me how she just knew my husband would send for us, any day now. She never once asked why a devoted husband couldn’t make time to visit his bride in the last weary weeks of pregnancy, or why the birth of his only child drew from him no more than the usual monthly letter, or why the passing of holidays and birthdays never tempted him to visit us. I don’t know. Maybe Sophie did suspect the truth and was only pretending for my sake. Complicit in our little household fraud. The innocent ones always understand more than you think.
Anyway. While I tried to stick to the truth, the part about not taking money from Father was a bald lie. I knew this because I’d seen the letter that arrived on the hall table in June, directed to Father from an address in London I didn’t recognize. I opened it, of course. You can’t just leave such a thing untouched, in the state I was in that summer of 1919. Without the slightest hesitation, I opened the London envelope and learned that the sum of ten thousand pounds sterling had, according to Mr. Fortescue’s instructions, been herewith deposited in the account of Mr. Simon Fitzwilliam of Penderleath, Cornwall. That the bank would be happy to oblige Mr. Fortescue, should he have any further business to transact in the kingdom of Great Britain, and, in the meantime, remained his obedient servant, et cetera.
And I suppose that’s why Father never asked me about Simon. He already knew everything he needed to know.
I tell you all this not out of spite, or for pity, but because you may think I was unreasonable, judging Simon so harshly, without any proof except for the word of his brother.
Or you may think Clara’s right. You may think there’s a simpler explanation, that she was kidnapped by the Ashley gang, as part of this brutal war with Simon and now Samuel over control of the lucrative bootlegging trade on the Florida coast, and that the doctor gave me those pills only in order to help me heal from that blow to my head. You may think that regardless of whether or not Simon was a villain, he’s dead, and that I ought to move forward. To begin my life anew. Fall in love with someone else, someone I can depend on.
The man, for example, who’s standing at the end of the pier before me, dark and enormous in the moonless night, while the river rushes softly at his feet. Or maybe it’s not Samuel. After all, I can’t see much in this blackness; only the feeblest hint of the Cocoa streetlights reaches us here, on the Phantom Shipping Company pier, and as I said, there’s no moon. Only the starlight, dimmed by that summer haze that coats the Florida sky. The world is so still and black, you can hear the groans of the alligators in the water below, the whispers of the night birds. The low mutter of the frogs, the squeaks of the crickets.
“Samuel!”
The man whips around. A light springs from his right hand and strikes my eyes.
“Christ! What are you doing here?”
An English voice. Samuel’s voice. (I’m right, you see. I’ve been right all along.)
“Looking for you.”
The light shuts off, and the darkness coats us once more. “Why?” he asks, and then, hastily: “You shouldn’t be here.”
“If you’re waiting for the ship, it won’t come.”
“What do you know about that?”
“I just know, that’s all.”
Samuel swears.
He hasn’t moved, not since that initial start, when I called out to him from my position halfway down the pier. I can’t really see him; I can only perceive his shape by the way it blocks out the pinpricks of light from the opposite shore. I believe the scientists call this indirect observation. It’s how they discover certain celestial bodies, or the constituent parts of an atom. You posit the existence of something by its effect on other objects.
“I know what you’re doing here tonight. I know that you’re expecting a shipment from Cuba—rum—and you’ve paid off the gang so they won’t steal the goods as they come in, but you’re wrong. They’re double-crossing you, Samuel. They’re taking your money and they’re stealing the rum anyway, because Simon’s with them.”
“Simon?”
“Yes.”
There is a shattering little silence.
“Simon’s dead, Virginia. He’s gone.”
“He’s not gone. I don’t know whose body you found inside that house on Cocoa Beach, but it wasn’t Simon’s. It was all for show. He wanted everyone to think he was dead, because the business was losing money, he had all these debts and he couldn’t pay them anymore, he couldn’t keep it all spinning, so he thought he would start fresh, and he created this elaborate lie, this—this forgery of his own death, in order to escape his debts, and my father paid him to do it, to go away from our lives for good—”
“Your father?”
“Yes. My father paid him off, directly after the fire. I saw the letter from the bank. And then when Father was found guilty, Simon must have realized I was an even better prize than before, an heiress—”
“Oh, Virginia—”
“Except that he’s got to get rid of you and Clara, so there will be no one left who knows the truth about him. And perhaps to get rid of me, too, so he can simply collect all my money, without the nuisance of marriage. I believe he’s already tried—I think Miss Bertram—”
He cuts me off by the simple act of moving forward and snatching my hand. “Come along,” he snarls, dragging me back down the pier toward the warehouse, which he opens with a key from his trouser pocket. Inside, he lights a kerosene lantern, and the sight of his face—square, blazing—sends me stumbling backward a step or two. He takes me by the elbows and tells me to be careful.
“You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m hysterical. Delusional. Because of everything that’s happened to me, all these terrible things—”
“It’s true, then? You’re not still in love with him?”
“My God! How could I be?”
The room is hot and packed with atmosphere. Samuel tugs on my elbows, and I step forward, closing the gap between us. He bends down and kisses me on the mouth in a blunt, straightforward attack, opening my surprised lips and then turning tender, cupping the back of my head with his hands, so that it’s no effort at all to stand there and kiss him. He’s been drinking; his tongue tastes of liquor, his breath is pungent with it, intoxicating me in a small, reckless way. My arms, now free, slip around his thick waist, and it seems that my hands can’t begin to encompass him, that I’m reduced to a miniature of myself. Small and dainty and safe, for once in my life, in the middle of a bootlegger’s warehouse on a moonless night. Imagine that. He lifts his head and his breath, reeking of brandy or more probably rum, touches my face. His thumbs run across my cheekbones. I keep my eyes closed, because he’s still so close, and I don’t want to look at him. Not yet. I don’t want to know if I love him. If I care for him at all. If I’m still capable of that kind of thing.
“Should I apologize?” he asks.