The Magnolia Palace

Chapter Twenty-One

Lillian had always wondered what had become of her former employer. Sometimes there were small items in the newspapers about Helen Frick’s art reference library or the Collection in general, but little else. Her own frenzied three months in the Frick mansion were like a fever dream, hazy and remote. But one summer she and Archer had splurged on a trip to Paris, and the walls of the Louvre had brought back a vivid recollection of painters and paintings. The bucolic serenity of a Constable, the cottony softness of a Fragonard—to think at one time she’d lived among them, passed by them several times a day.

Helen hadn’t lost any of her imperiousness, even after almost five decades. She blasted classical music on the radio during the forty-five-minute drive to the nursing home, making any chitchat among Lillian, Veronica, and Joshua impossible, a fact that Lillian relished as the Lincoln charged down the highway, sliding from lane to lane. Once they’d arrived at the nursing home—a beautifully landscaped Victorian mansion—Miss Helen strode up to the reception desk, banging her flat palm on the counter to call for attention. Some things never changed. But then again, she’d been protected from most perils of life by her piles of money, by her library, by creating a domain where she could rule with little pushback.

Lillian, on the other hand, had experienced the normal trials and tribulations. Her life with Archer hadn’t been easy, but they’d laughed their way through most of it. A surprise, really, considering how little she’d known him before her escape. Not long after her frightening leap from Mr. Frick’s sitting room to the roof of the loggia, Archer’s voice had risen up from the street below. With the help of some crates precariously stacked on top of each other, he’d guided her down to the safety of the sidewalk, and been by her side ever since. First in an uptown hotel, where he’d slept on the floor, then here in Pine Knolls, where he had a cousin who let them find their bearings. During that time, she’d fallen in love with Archer and been able to forge a new life for herself, far away from the Fricks’ calamitous influence. He’d seen her as a whole person, and hadn’t judged her by her past, nor been offended by it.

They’d scraped by with the money he brought in from playing at services and weddings at the local church, the organ a rangy, difficult beast compared to the Fricks’ thoroughbred of an instrument. But he’d never complained, not when he returned from teaching private lessons to children who had little talent or inclination, or directing the church’s shrill choir, top-heavy with sopranos. They’d made a tranquil life together, growing vegetables and fixing up the house, taking long walks in forests that used to be farmland, following obsolete rock walls that no longer fenced in livestock or delineated crops but had survived centuries.

No one here knew who she used to be, and neither would they care, Lillian surmised. Most of the townspeople rarely, if ever, ventured into the big city. Her likeness was only to be found in the mirror, and she’d watched with a removed curiosity as her skin drooped and became dotted with sunspots—how her mother would have cried to see her daughter’s ivory skin darken—and her hair became streaked with gray, growing finer, more likely to tangle. Archer still viewed her as a beauty, that was all that mattered, and when she looked at him, she still envisioned the handsome young gentleman with the shock of thick hair, never mind that it was silver now.

They’d had one daughter, Anna, who lived close by with her husband and her own baby girl. Lillian was eternally grateful that she and Archer had created a happy family with few disagreements. Maybe it was her hands-off approach, so different from Kitty’s overbearing style or Mr. Frick’s incessant meddling, that had done the trick. Or maybe it was simply luck.

So quickly, it seemed, she’d become a mother and then a grandmother, and had found genuine delight in the sound of a toddler’s giggles erupting like bubbles of joy. She’d reconnected with Bertha, and twice a year they met in the city and proudly shared family photos (Bertha had six grandchildren now). Although they rarely spoke of that final night at the mansion, they knew their secrets were safe with each other, that it was a bond that would never be broken.

When Lillian ventured into New York, she did her best to avoid passing any of her statues, as each stone-cold likeness stood as a reminder of how young and innocent she’d been, and how easily forgotten. While the sculptors’ names were etched into history, hers was lost forever.

As Helen harangued the receptionist at the front desk of the nursing home, Lillian studied the two young people in tow. They looked tired and confused, and she still wasn’t sure how they fit in to all this. The girl, Veronica, was an exquisite creature with the oddest haircut, and she kept looking at the man—Joshua was his name—as if she needed something from him.

“Miss Winnie’s in the solarium,” announced Helen. “Follow me.”

At the back of the building, they went through a door to a sunny room filled with ferns and orchids. The intense humidity inside brought back hot summer days when the thick air dripped with moisture. Helen stopped and pointed.

Miss Winnie looked almost exactly the same, stout and wrinkled, even though she had to be in her early nineties by now. Her hair was thinning, the scalp underneath a smooth and shiny pale pink. She was dozing in her wheelchair, her chin dropped forward, her hands clasped atop a plaid blanket.

“Wait.” Lillian stopped Helen with a hand on her arm. “I should go.”

“Why you?”

“The element of surprise. Didn’t you say you visit her regularly?”

“I come once a month.” Helen hesitated only for a moment. “I guess you’re right. We’ll go around to the back, where she can’t see us but we can hear.”

Lillian nodded. “I’ll wait until you’re in position.”

“I’d like to come with you as well, Lillian, if it’s okay?” said Veronica. She shifted from one foot to the other. “Maybe I can help in some way, if you get stuck.” She peered up at her from beneath thick bangs, reminding Lillian of a dog who’d misbehaved. Something was going on between this odd trio who’d shown up on her doorstep this morning, but she couldn’t suss out exactly what it was.

Lillian checked with Helen, who shrugged.

Miss Winnie was waking up just as Lillian and Veronica approached. Lillian drew up a chair while Veronica remained standing, a little off to the side.

“Miss Winnie. Do you remember me?” Lillian asked.

“No.” She coughed several times, her breathing wet and heavy. “Who are you?”

“I was Miss Helen’s private secretary, around the time that Mr. Frick passed away. Do you remember?”

Miss Winnie nodded but didn’t smile. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Lillian and Veronica, then settled on Lillian. “You were the pretty one. I remember.”

“It turns out I don’t live far from here. Some coincidence, right?”

“Well, that’s nice. Why are you here? Who is this, your daughter?”

Veronica held out her hand to Miss Winnie. “I’m a friend, my name’s Veronica. We came to visit someone we know who lives here, and then Lillian realized she knew you.”

Miss Winnie studied Lillian’s features, like she was analyzing an artist’s canvas. “You’re not as pretty anymore.”

“Neither are you.”

Miss Winnie laughed. “Never was. But now you’re pretty in a different way.”

“Thank you.”

A nurse wandered through, and Lillian remained silent after she’d passed. Miss Winnie spoke first. “That was a terrible time.”

Lillian nodded but didn’t answer, hoping her silence would draw Miss Winnie out.

Her strategy worked. After a moment or two, Miss Winnie let out a thick sigh. “The rich think they’re protected, that they have magical powers, when in fact they’re only mere mortals, like the rest of us. Bodies break down, betray you. People you love die. Children die.”

Earlier, when Helen revealed that Miss Winnie had been Martha’s nursemaid, Lillian had vaguely remembered being told that her first day at the house, as Miss Helen gave her an orientation. At the time, it hadn’t seemed important, not when Lillian was still in shock at having landed the job of private secretary. “You must have seen a lot during your time working for the family, including Martha’s decline.”

Miss Winnie threw out a suspicious glance. “They don’t like me talking about that.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Frick are gone now.”

“True. Long gone. Can’t believe I’m still kicking.”

“Why didn’t they want you to talk about it?”

“Because I knew the truth.”

“What truth?”

Miss Winnie clamped her lips shut and looked away.

“The death of Martha was painful for the entire family, I’m sure,” said Lillian. “No parent should have to go through that. How awful for them.”

“Bah!” A darkness spread over the woman’s features. “You weren’t there when Mr. Frick was forcing the poor child to ride a bike, to be like a normal girl. Urging her on, even though she was obviously in pain. It used to make my blood boil. If they’d taken me to Europe with them instead of hiring some foreign girl to watch over her, it would have never happened in the first place. And later, if they’d listened to me when I insisted that something was wrong, we might have saved her.”

“Why did you stay on, then, after Martha’s death?”

“Someone had to take care of Mrs. Frick, poor woman. She wasn’t strong. She had no one to lean on.” Her face grew pinched. “I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Nurse!”

Suddenly, Veronica, who had shifted off to the side, spoke so quietly that even Lillian had to strain to hear her. “We found the missing cameo. After all these years.”

Miss Winnie’s neck snapped to the left, and she began to rotate in her chair, then just as quickly caught herself, facing forward again. At first, Lillian was annoyed at Veronica for injecting herself into the conversation, but then she realized what the girl had done. From where Veronica stood, Miss Winnie couldn’t have heard her or read her lips. Yet the effect was like a bomb going off.

Smart girl, that Veronica. She’d picked up on what Lillian had said earlier, about how she’d tested Miss Winnie in a similar manner right before she’d fled.

“What was that?” said Miss Winnie, craning her neck around in an exaggerated attempt to hide her initial response.

Lillian held up the cameo, and then placed it in Miss Winnie’s hand. “You remember this, don’t you?”

Miss Winnie examined it, turning it over. She didn’t open the back, but gave it a little shake. The diamond inside offered up a light rattle. “Martha’s cameo. Yes. I remember it. Why are you showing it to me? Give it to Miss Helen, she’ll be quite happy.”

She hadn’t asked where it was found, the most obvious question. That, along with her sharp sense of hearing, confirmed that Lillian’s suspicions were correct. After all this time.

“Do you want to know where it was discovered?” she asked Miss Winnie.

“Fine. Sure. Where was it discovered?”

“I think you know already since you’re the one who put it there.”

Miss Winnie let out a breath, then glared at Lillian. “How dare that man be laid to rest with Martha’s cameo.”

“So you were there.”

“Yes, I was. I was in the gallery with one of the maids, helping to get everything ready to receive the mourners. I’d stepped into the enamels room to check that it was tidy, and heard you and Miss Helen approach, overheard everything you said. After you left, I snatched that thing right out of his cold, dead hand. I didn’t want it for myself, I just didn’t want him to have it.”

“But why didn’t you take it with you?”

“I was unsure what to do with it, how to dispose of it, when I remembered the compartments behind the panels. That was where Mr. Frick kept the lock of Martha’s hair, before his study was moved to make room for the enamels.”

“The lock of hair that you and he drank to on the anniversary of her death?” asked Lillian.

“I told you about that, did I? Yes. They’d unscrewed the knobs, but I used a hairpin to pry one of the doors open and tossed the cameo inside.”

“But then you let me take the blame for it,” said Lillian.

Miss Winnie didn’t meet her eye. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t know the Magnolia diamond was inside until I heard Miss Helen getting upset.”

“You’re not deaf,” said Veronica. A statement, not a question.

“No, not even at my age, now. I can hear perfectly fine.” Miss Winnie puffed with pride. “Everything else is shot, but my ears are good.”

“So why did you pretend?” asked Lillian.

“It made it easier to sit for hours with Mrs. Frick. How she would go on and on, about her ailments, about the terrible injustices against her. I sympathized to a point, but she knew nothing of how hard life could be in the real world. I’d come from true poverty, was put to work at the age of thirteen, and spent most of my time fetching tonics and administering salves for a woman who ate too much marzipan and then complained of indigestion, who found sunny days a personal affront. I began to notice that my false infirmity made people more willing to speak freely around me. I would hear things I shouldn’t. Oh, people dismissed me as a batty idiot, but I was always listening, always.”

She regarded Lillian. “I felt guilty at what happened to you, shouldering the blame, but you were an interloper, coming in, getting in everyone’s good graces. I never trusted you. And then that business with Helen’s suitor. I knew you were a bad apple. So pretty, had to lord it over Miss Helen, who never had a chance. I did what was best for her, for the family.”

The sharp sting of guilt over Lillian’s dalliance with Mr. Danforth hadn’t lessened over the years. But she kept on. “Like leaving a water glass out for Mr. Frick after putting a sleeping draft in it?”

A small, triumphant smile appeared on Miss Winnie’s lips. “That wasn’t my idea. A good idea, but not mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I walked by Mr. Frick’s bathroom, and there she was, that same maid—what was her name, Bertha, yes, that was it—hovering over the sink, a bottle of Veronal in her hot little hand. She didn’t see me, but I watched her as she began to tip it into a glass, then stopped. She looked at herself in the mirror, set the bottle down next to the glass, and ran off. Coward.”

“So you poisoned him instead.”

“I figured I’d finish what she started. I poured the powder into the glass, hid the bottle in my pocket, and then filled the glass with water and left it on the edge of the sink. I didn’t kill him in the end, you see. It wasn’t my idea, even.”

“But then Helen went and gave it to him,” said Lillian. “You put her in a terrible position.”

“I hadn’t meant for anyone to get in trouble, that meddling nurse . . .” She didn’t finish the thought. “I freed Miss Helen from the restraints of being her father’s daughter. She was better off without him.”

“If anything, it made it harder for her to let him go, to move on with her life.”

“I did them all a favor, and served Martha’s memory. They are grateful to me for my service to the family. It’s because of their largesse that I’m here.” Miss Winnie gestured around the solarium. “Everyone ended up just fine.”

The woman had twisted reality around to suit her own purposes.

“Except Mr. Frick,” said Lillian.

Miss Winnie leaned forward, furious. “Don’t you judge me. You were one of the pretty ones. Miss Helen never had a chance, with that horsey face. Not with her father, not with that suitor. A girl like that, she needed my protection.”

“That’s audacious, coming from you,” answered Lillian. “You say you were taking revenge on Mr. Frick, but you were exactly like him. Judging people by your own harsh standards, making assumptions. Manipulating those around you who trusted you.”

“I certainly did not.”

“You certainly did.” Helen emerged from where she’d been hiding, Joshua right behind her.

Miss Winnie’s head jerked around, her rheumy eyes wide with shock. “Miss Helen!”

Helen drew close, her fists clenched. “I have lived with the guilt all these years when it was your fault. I blamed Miss Lilly wrongly for the theft, which, again, you committed.”

Miss Winnie leaned forward in her wheelchair, hands braced on the armrests. “Look at everything you’ve accomplished after his death. You’d been his sycophant prior to that, bending to his will in every way. As did your mother, year after year. But you turned around and made something of yourself. I’m proud of you, Miss Helen.”

As Helen sputtered, unable to reply to the contorted compliment, Lillian spoke up. “You made yourself the judge and jury.”

“I certainly did. And if I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing.” Miss Winnie sat back again, satisfied with herself. “Actually, no. If I had to do it all over again, I’d steal Martha away from that household when she was still a baby, and save her from a short life filled with pain.”

Helen recoiled. “You might want to remember who you’re talking to. I pay for all this out of my largesse, as you put it. At the end of this month, I can have them wheel you out and lock the door behind you.”

All the color drained from Miss Winnie’s face. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

Helen wouldn’t hesitate to bulldoze anyone in her path. But turning a weak old lady out in the streets was coldhearted, even for her. Veronica looked like she was about to cry.

Lillian had to stop Helen from following in the heartless footsteps of her father. “Helen,” she said, “I am in no way defending Miss Winnie for what she did, but you have to imagine what it would have been like for her back then. All of us, including you, were at the receiving end of your father’s bullying ways; I remember so many instances when he made you feel small or inadequate. I’m not saying he didn’t love you, perhaps that was his way of showing it. But imagine being a sickly child and having that same fierce energy directed at you. Imagine being the one in charge of that child, and helpless to step in and stop it.” She thought of Bertha’s bottled-up fury, all of the people of that Pennsylvania town who’d been wiped from the earth. “You have a chance to end the generations of pain.”

“Through bankrolling his murderer?”

“Through forgiveness. Toward Miss Winnie, your father, me.” She paused. “And most of all, yourself.”

The foursome were silent on the drive back to Lillian’s house. Helen drove as if she were imagining Miss Winnie lying prone in the road in front of her, gunning the engine after every turn. On one sharp corner, the two kids in the back seat bumped into each other, and Lillian turned around in time to see Joshua gently tap Veronica’s leg.

“Whoa, there, missy,” he’d said.

Lillian wondered if they were a couple, what the story was, but this was no time to ask.

After Lillian’s plea, Helen had let out a guffaw and begun walking away. But she’d only made it a few steps when she hesitated, turned, and walked back to Miss Winnie. She lifted her hand and placed it on Miss Winnie’s cheek. Everyone froze, wondering what was to come next, and Miss Winnie began to cry. Helen wiped her tears with her thumb before straightening up and saying goodbye. It was a sign, Lillian hoped, that her words might have had an effect.

Once they were back at the farmhouse, Lillian invited them inside. Archer gave her an inquisitive look when they first walked in, but knew better than to pepper her with questions after taking in their somber faces.

Helen rubbed her eyes. “I hate that my family died still wondering if I’d accidentally killed Papsie. My mother, on her deathbed, told me she forgave me. I wish I could go back in time and prove to her that she was wrong, that I hadn’t done it.”

Lillian leaned over and rubbed Helen’s arm. “Everyone did as best they could with the knowledge that they had. Your mother always loved you, you know that. As did your father, in his own way.”

“It’s been almost fifty years that I’ve been tormented by the thought that I’d killed my father. It helps to know the truth, finally. I have all of you to thank for that. And I do thank you. Even if it came at such a cost. While I may never forgive Miss Winnie, we will always share a love for Martha.”

“So you won’t turn her out of the nursing home?” asked Veronica.

“I will not.”

Helen drew the cameo out of her pocket and placed it on the table. They all studied it as if it were some animal to be dissected in a science lab.

“They loved Martha best,” said Helen. “And that’s all right. She deserved all the love she could get, in her brief life.”

“What will you do with the cameo now?” asked Joshua.

“I don’t know. It’s been tucked away all these years. I have half a mind to put it back where it came from.” She gave him a sharp look, but there was a twinkle in her eye. “Unless you busybodies go fussing about in my house again.”

“I know what you should do,” said Veronica. She picked it up and turned to Helen. “Wear it.” Without asking, she pinned it onto the lapel of Miss Helen’s coat. “You’ll be carrying Martha’s memory with you all the time. I bet she’d like that.”

Helen ran her finger over it and smiled. “Perhaps she would. Funny, but I can’t picture her anymore. In my head, I see the portrait, not the actual girl. It was so many years ago, and I was so young.”

“You’ve made her proud, and your father proud,” said Lillian. “An unconventional life is what you’re leading, as your father did.”

“I never let anyone push me around. Not easy, for a woman in my time. Even a rich one. I made my dreams come true. The library, my farm. You’ll have to visit me some time, Miss Lilly.”

“That’s kind of you. Perhaps we will,” answered Lillian. “Those months at the Frick mansion changed my life, I will admit. By the time I left, I knew that I could manage in the world without having to rely on my beauty. Better to have learned that early on rather than try to fight the inevitable decline of age.”

“You’re welcome,” said Helen, and everyone laughed. “I rather enjoy being an eccentric old lady. The power that comes with not caring what others think is invigorating.”

Lillian took Helen’s hand in hers. “I am sorry, Helen, for getting swept up by Mr. Danforth’s advances. That was cruel of me.”

“Well, while we’re being honest, you helped me dodge a disastrous union. My father, as much as he said he wanted it, would have hated to have to share me, had he lived. On top of that, I was never the wifely sort; it would have ended in a terrible scandal, certainly. But I do appreciate you saying so.”

Helen took a sip of tea and shared a kind look with Lillian, who patted her hand some more.