only wish you could see it. The thing is, I believe you can.’
‘I should never have called on you.’
‘Oh, Papa,’ I cried, ‘yes, you should! I wish you would call on me more often. You have no idea how happy I am you have come – don’t walk out now! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said – only you asked me, and I worry for you – and then you mentioned going to Chile, as if that were a sensible idea, with that dreadful, selfish, wicked woman, and I’m sorry I couldn’t stop myself . . . Papa?’
‘Darling,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter.’ He stopped at the door and turned back to look at me. ‘I forgive you.’
‘For what?’ I cried.
But he was gone.
I had lain awake all that night, worrying for him. And then morning had come and, with it, the arrival of Rudy and all the appalling noises from her tower boudoir . . . Rudy and I had wandered into the house – it was too cold to stay out – and were in the nursery with Jack, more careless together than usual, because Mr Hademak had taken the auto on some errand for his mistress.
Mrs de Saulles had crept in as Rudy and I were lying side by side on the floor, with the miniature toy circus in front of us. We were deep in conversation. Jack, it so happened, was sitting quite absorbed in his story book, in the nursery’s furthest corner, and Rudy and I were laughing. He had a hand on my forearm, and he was telling me something lovely. He was telling me . . .
He was telling me he thought I was beautiful. There. I have written it. He had never said it before, and I was laughing because it was such a wonderful thing for him to say. And he was laughing because I was laughing.
That was when Mrs de Saulles wandered in. The one and only time I ever saw her in the nursery. She didn’t say anything, and Rudy only slowly removed his hand. He looked up at her as she stood there, still as stone.
‘Mrs de Saulles,’ he said, with the smallest smile. ‘You are ready to dance?’
‘To dance?’ she said, her voice low and expressionless. ‘I shouldn’t think so. I wasn’t aware that you were here, Mr Guglielmi.’
‘No?’ He sounded unconvinced. ‘But you sent for me only this morning. I have been here since noon!’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so,’ she said again. ‘In any case my head aches dreadfully, so you might as well go home.’ She turned away from him to her small boy, who hadn’t yet looked up from his book. ‘Jack – darling,’ she snapped at him, and he jumped. ‘My baby, come here and say hello to your mama. I’ve been looking all over for you.’
She wandered away soon afterwards, ignoring me, just as she always did, with the boy following dutifully behind her.
Rudy sighed. He reached across, held my cheek in his hand, and looked at me with a sort of wistfulness I didn’t fully comprehend. We were alone, side by side on the carpet, our elbows resting on the floor. He kissed me.
‘Only promise me,’ he said, pulling away, ‘promise you’ll keep in touch?’
But the kiss was still working its magic. My mind wasn’t there. I laughed at him. ‘Keep in touch?’ I repeated. ‘Rudy, I’m not going anywhere. What can you mean?’
It was then he took the pin from his collar, a small gold pin. He gave it to me. ‘Look after it, will you?’ he said. ‘I brought it all the way from Italy.’ I have it still, of course. I have looked after it ever since.
Retaliation came curving back before we’d even plucked ourselves up from the floor. Mrs de Saulles sent a message to the nursery barely half a minute later, via Madeleine, who arrived looking as if she’d been through a hurricane. She tapped on the door, saw us seated there, closer than we might have been, his hand on my bare arm, but she didn’t even snigger. Rudy was to go to the hall and wait there, alone, she told us, until Hademak returned from his errands. As soon as he returned, he would be leaving at once to drive them both – Mrs de Saulles and Rudy – to the train station.
I never saw Rudy at The Box again.
Later that afternoon, after she had reached New York, Mrs de Saulles sent a message via Hademak, ordering my father to pack up his belongings. She said she wanted him out of the house by nightfall.
Poor Papa. Poor, stupid man. We overheard him – the entire household overheard him – bawling at Hademak, the pair of them as lovestruck and as broken as each other. And yet he bawled as if his exile were all Mr Hademak’s fault.
‘You think I don’t know your game?’ Papa was roaring, and upstairs, alone in my bedroom, I’m sorry to say I winced for him. ‘You think I don’t see you wheedling away, gazing at your mistress like a Goddamn puppy dog? You think she and I don’t laugh at you? We laugh every time you have left the room! And now, the moment her back is turned, you try to oust me – but you can’t win! You can’t win, you filthy Swedish wheedler . . . ’ Why, he suddenly declared, only that morning he and Mrs de Saulles had been contemplating running away together to Chile. Or Uruguay. Or London . . . ‘You can’t stamp on a love like ours with your filthy Swedish wheedling. Eh? Ha! Get out of here! Get out of my sight before I have you fired. Get out!’
Hademak came knocking at my door. He stood there, his head stooped to fit beneath the frame, a great giant of a man, and he was shaking like a leaf. ‘Your father doesn’t listen,’ he said to me. ‘He thinks I am guilty with some terrible plan. But he has to leave immediately. At once. This afternoon . . . Mrs de Saulles won’t tolerate to have him in the house.’
‘But why? Why him? Why not me? What has he done?’
‘She has complained to Mr de Saulles that – he has performed inappropriate and, er, unwelcome approaches towards her, and, er . . . ’ he couldn’t bring himself to look at me ‘ . . . Mr de Saulles iss . . . enthusiastic to telephone the sheriff.’
‘What?’
He shrugged – a tiny little shrug, for such enormous shoulders. ‘Madame is . . . most unhappy. Your father has to leave us at once, or I have been ordered to telephone Sheriff Withers.’
‘But to leave for where? Where is he to go?’
‘I am to give him two hundred dollars for his art and then I must drive him to the train station . . . Your papa iss insisted on taking his art with him. But I have been told to order him . . . that the money is only when he leaves the art behind.’ Mr Hademak’s English seemed to deteriorate, the more distressed he became. ‘He must leave it all behind, and go out at once. Can you explain to him? . . . I am ssorry, Jennifer . . . I can direct him with an excellent boarding-house in the city . . . It is cheap . . . ’
There was little choice. Father could leave for the city with two hundred dollars or he could be arrested and leave without a cent for Mineola jail. Either way, we all knew there was no possibility of Mrs de Saulles relenting. He had to go at once.
Sadly, I agreed I would go to talk to him. I told Mr Hademak that I would pack
