Father . . . Her mother had managed to gasp out. With the last of her feeble strength she pushed the pendant toward Lucy. Legacy.
And then Lucy had run for a glass of water, the pendant hastily thrust inside her skirt pocket, as though water might have any effect against those horrible hacking coughs, wrenching up her mother’s blood and guts, coughing, coughing, coughing. She’d had the pitcher in her hand, the glass in the other, when it happened, a gush of blood, a rattle of breath.
Harry . . .
And then nothing. Nothing but a pendant in her pocket and a name she didn’t know.
Mr. Ravenel nodded at the necklace. “A family heirloom?”
“Yes, something like that.” It was just polite chitchat, but Lucy found that she didn’t want to talk about her mother or her necklace. It was too close, too raw. “I understand that you wanted to speak to Mr. Schuyler about opening a gallery?”
For a moment, it looked as though Mr. Ravenel would pursue the topic of the necklace. But he relaxed back in his chair, saying, “I’ve been considering opening a branch of my gallery in New York, yes. But I may have misled Mr. Cromwell just a bit. My reasons for being in New York . . . They’re a bit more complicated than that.”
“Complexity is our specialty,” said Lucy brightly. “I’m sure, whatever it is, that Mr. Cromwell and Mr. Schuyler will do their utmost.”
Mr. Ravenel turned the glass around in his hand, candlelight sparkling off crystal. “It’s not necessarily a legal problem.”
The waiter appeared with a small procession of underlings, and for a moment, they were silent, as porcelain plates were whisked into place and water glasses refilled. The pale damask tablecloth was nearly invisible beneath bowls of green vegetables swimming in butter, golden-brown slabs of potatoes Anna, and large crimson lobster shells, brimming with a mysterious concoction of creamy lobster meat.
Mr. Ravenel waited until Lucy reached for her fork before lifting his own. “I suppose you could say this visit is something of a pilgrimage.”
“Artistic or otherwise?”
“Both, you could say.” Mr. Ravenel’s lips twisted in a reluctant smile. “I don’t mean to make a mystery of it. It’s just difficult to find a way to explain. Do you know of my father?”
“Only by reputation,” Lucy hedged. She hadn’t heard of him at all until a week ago. Her mother’s artistic interests had skipped a generation; she was her father’s daughter, efficient and practical.
At least, she had thought she was.
Mr. Ravenel’s calloused fingers traced the delicate stem of his water glass. “My father made his reputation painting in Cuba in the nineties. Pictures of village life, local festivities. When war broke out, he painted what he saw. Those same villages burnt-out, scarred, destroyed. There are some who credit his paintings with bringing the U.S. into the war with Spain.”
“That is . . . impressive.”
“I wouldn’t know. I was only just born at the time, and I was too concerned with making sure I had a regular milk supply. At least, as my mother tells it.” He glanced up, a hint of a smile on his face. “She had a time of it, getting us out. She dragged my father and his easel with one hand, and hauled me with the other, clear up to the Texas border.”
“She sounds like a formidable woman.”
“She is.” The fondness in his voice was unmistakable. “She’s currently the terror of several ladies’ auxiliary committees and a constant thorn in the side of my sister.”
“You’re lucky,” Lucy said. “To have a sister.”
She used to imagine brothers and sisters for herself, a whole household full of companions. But no matter how hard she wished or imagined, it was always just her. There had been a miscarriage—twins, Lucy knew, from what she had overheard from behind the door, clinging to her doll—and then nothing. Her parents had shared a room, but not, apparently, anything more.
Mr. Ravenel was watching her with a little too much interest. Hastily, Lucy said, “But what does this have to do with your visit to New York?”
Mr. Ravenel regarded the baroque curlicues on the handle of his fork. “As I said, it’s hard to explain. Cuba made my father’s career—but it was more than that. He never spoke of his life before Cuba. It was as if he sprang full blown as a grown man, with an easel on his back and a paintbrush in his hand.” He shook his head. “Most artists have early works. Old sketches, experiments that failed. My father—we have only one painting that predates Cuba. And I only found that one by accident. He was,” he said, as if by way of apology, “a very private man.”
Lucy’s mother had been like that, too. Lucy had always had the sense of her mother as a traveler at a wayside inn, hugging her past to herself like a precious bundle she was afraid to lose.