The Last Word Read online

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  For Jon

  Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

  —CHARLOTTE BRONTË, JANE EYRE

  One

  SHE WAS FINALLY GOING TO escape protocol prison.

  Or, in other words, Miss Lucinda Leavitt was graduating from Miss Holley’s Finishing School for Young Ladies, where she’d spent four aggravating years reluctantly obtaining polish and female accomplishments. She looked down at her pink dress—it had more layers than a wedding cake. She hoped her father would find it pretty and see that she was all grown up now. That she was able to make decisions for herself.

  Miss Holley, the plump proprietor, came into the sitting room with another woman, who was extremely thin with a long face framed by mousy-brown braids.

  “Miss Holley, by chance has my father arrived yet?” Lucinda asked.

  Miss Holley sniffed. “Miss Leavitt, do not be presumptuous. Your father is a very important businessman, and he has better things to do with his time than accompany you home from school.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but I am to leave today. Will I be allowed to travel on the train to London alone?” Lucinda asked, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.

  “Do not be fanciful, Miss Leavitt,” Miss Holley said, shaking her head. “Young ladies of quality must be chaperoned at all times for their safety and for their reputation. ‘For a lady’s reputation is—’”

  “‘As fragile as a flower,’” Lucinda finished without enthusiasm.

  “I am glad you learned something at my school, Miss Leavitt,” Miss Holley said. “Although not as much as I would have liked. But perhaps Mrs. Patton will be able to succeed where I have failed.”

  “Mrs. Patton?”

  Miss Holley touched her massive bosom and said, “Dear me, I should have introduced you at the first, Lavinia. Miss Leavitt, allow me to introduce your new lady’s companion, Mrs. Lavinia Patton. She is an old friend of mine.”

  “Companion? I don’t need a companion,” Lucinda said, rising.

  “Manners, Miss Leavitt, manners,” Miss Holley chided. “Your father has already hired Mrs. Patton upon my recommendation. She will introduce you to the best of society and help you become an elegant lady.”

  Lucinda curtsied to the long-faced woman. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Patton. How long should I expect the pleasure of your company?”

  Mrs. Patton bowed her head slightly. “Until you are married, dear girl. Which I should not think will be too long, given your face and fortune.”

  “You forget her low birth … and that she is obstinate and headstrong, with a mind of her own,” Miss Holley said. “Still, if anyone can help Miss Leavitt to an advantageous match, it is you, Lavinia.”

  But I don’t want to get married, Lucinda thought fiercely. I want to work in my father’s countinghouse.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, Lucinda bit her thumbnail in frustrated boredom.

  Being an elegant lady is exceedingly dull work, she thought as she sat on the edge of her chair next to the window, waiting for the post to arrive. She had nothing else to do. It was too early in the day to make calls and too late in the day to lie in bed.

  So she counted the carriages that passed the street in front of her house—thirty-two. She counted the people who walked by—forty-seven (twenty-three women and twenty-four men). She was about to count the bricks on the house across the street when the postman arrived. She jumped from her chair and ran to the door before the butler, Mr. Ruffles, could answer it. She flung open the door and startled the postman, who was opening the letter box.

  “I’ll take those,” she said, reaching out her hand.

  The postman touched his navy cap and bowed to her before handing her several letters and a small package.

  “Thank you!” Lucinda said and shut the door. She turned to see Mr. Ruffles standing behind her. He bowed to her. He was shorter than Lucinda and had a square-shaped face and a mouth that never smiled.

  “Here’s the post, Ruffles,” she said, handing him the stack of letters. They were all for her father anyway. She kept the small parcel clutched tightly in her white-knuckled hands, knowing exactly what it was. Lucinda skipped to the sitting room, where ladies sat … a lot. Her companion, Mrs. Patton, was already sleeping in a chair, snoring with her mouth open.

  Lucinda quietly closed the door. She untied the twine and unwrapped the brown paper to reveal Wheathill’s Magazine, the May 1861 edition. Lucinda squealed silently and hopped up and down on the balls of her feet.

  It was finally here!

  She sat down on the sofa, flipped open the cover, and found the table of contents. The newest installment of She Knew She Was Right by Mrs. Smith began on page thirty-six. Lucinda turned the pages quickly until she reached the correct page. There was an illustration—a young lady dressed in a ball gown with a gentleman on each side. Both gentlemen held one arm outstretched toward her. The caption underneath read: Whom will she choose? The same question had been plaguing Lucinda since she read the April edition of the magazine. Now, a month later, her curiosity was at last to be satiated. After two years of reading the book published in serial form, she was finally going to read the ending.

  Lucinda held her breath and began to read:

  “My feelings are like a tangled web, Miss Emerson,” Lord Dunstan said as he clasped her delicate hand between his two large ones. “And only you can unravel them.”

  Eurydice’s heart fluttered and her face flushed with color. Lord Dunstan was so very tall, dark, and handsome, with only a slight white scar underneath his left ear to disfigure his otherwise natural beauty.

  “Lord Dunstan, I do believe you are flirting with me.”

  “I am not flirting, my dear Miss Emerson,” he said. “I am completely in earnest. You alone hold all of my affections. All of my dreams and wishes for my future are tangled up around you.”

  Could this be a declaration? Eurydice could hardly breathe. Her heart beat wildly. She looked down at her feet, for she was too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

  “Miss Emerson, before I can beg you to be mine for all time, I must tell you the truth of my past.”

  Eurydice was surprised enough by these words to look up into his dark, stormy eyes and hold her breath in terrible expectation.

  “Lord Dunstan,” Mr. Thisbe called from the door of the house. “Lord Dunstan, Mr. Emerson wishes to have speech with you.”

 
; “We will have to finish our conversation later, my dear Miss Emerson. I leave you most reluctantly,” Lord Dunstan said, and kissed the top of Eurydice’s hand before releasing it.

  Eurydice could only nod, so great was her embarrassment. Lord Dunstan walked into the house, and Mr. Thisbe came out to the garden where Eurydice was picking flowers. He was not as tall nor as handsome as Lord Dunstan, but his blue eyes were open and kind. He had an air of virtue and humility. To Eurydice’s shock, he knelt before her on the grass and took the same hand that Lord Dunstan had recently held and kissed.

  “Miss Emerson,” Mr. Thisbe said, “I believe that the Lord above ordained us for one another. Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”

  Lucinda’s heart raced as if she’d run up a hill. Which suitor would Eurydice choose? But the next page was blank. Lucinda frowned, wondering if there had been some sort of misprint. When she continued on, the next page had a note from the editor:

  Here the story is broken off, and it can never be finished. What promised to be the crowning work of a life is a memorial of death. The Editor regrets to inform the Reader that Mrs. Smith has died. But if the work is not quite complete, little remains to be added to it, and that little has been distinctly reflected into our minds. Which suitor would Eurydice Emerson have chosen? The handsome and mysterious Lord Dunstan, or the kind and generous Mr. Thisbe? Now we will never know.

  Thomas Gibbs, Editor, 1861

  “But I must know!” Lucinda said aloud.

  She sat up in disbelief and quickly read the editor’s note again. She bit the end of her thumbnail and blinked away tears that had formed in her eyes. Her favorite author could not have died. It was impossible. Unthinkable. Mrs. Smith’s novels were Lucinda’s only escape from the endless monotony of her existence.

  Mrs. Patton awoke from her dozing. She blinked several times and brought her lace handkerchief to her mouth, sighing long and loud.

  “Really, Lucinda,” she chided in a singsong voice. “That is hardly a ladylike tone to be using.”

  “She’s dead,” Lucinda said numbly, and slumped back on the sofa, tears falling freely from her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.

  “Who is dead?” Mrs. Patton asked, sitting up straight.

  “The author of She Knew She Was Right is dead,” Lucinda said with a sniffle. “And now the story will remain unfinished.”

  Mrs. Patton gave another long sigh and leaned back in her seat. “You quite shocked me, my dear. I was thinking it was one of our friends.”

  Lucinda merely rolled her wet eyes in reply and gave a loud sniff. She didn’t have any friends. Mrs. Patton was only a hired companion; a widow with little money, noble birth, and no love of literature.

  “Perhaps you need an airing, Lucinda,” Mrs. Patton said in chipper voice as she stood. “We haven’t been outside in three days. I’ll call for a carriage. Why don’t you get our calling cards? We can leave one at Mrs. Randall’s house. A most advantageous social connection, indeed, especially considering her son is your father’s business partner. Particularly when your own origins are more, shall we say, humble?”

  “Humble,” Lucinda echoed numbly and clutched the magazine to her chest.

  * * *

  Mrs. Patton and Lucinda sat in the carriage while the footman left calling cards at nine separate houses, including the Randalls’. For an airing, they weren’t getting much air at all, and were instead just sitting like well-dressed dolls in a carriage. Lucinda still held the magazine against her chest, hoping somehow that she had misread it and the whole afternoon was only a terrible dream. But every time she flipped open the pages, the editor’s note told her once again that Mrs. Smith was dead.

  “Really, my dear,” Mrs. Patton sighed, “you are not behaving like a well-brought-up young lady from Miss Holley’s select school. It is foolish, and dare I add unladylike, to take so much to heart the death of a complete stranger.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Patton,” Lucinda said and tried to chew on her thumbnail, only to remember she was wearing gloves.

  But she was not a well-brought-up young lady—she was a stubborn one. And never knowing the ending to her favorite story was simply unacceptable.

  Lucinda needed a plan. She would go to the editor and demand to be told everything he knew about Mrs. Smith. Surely one of Mrs. Smith’s kin, or a particular friend, must know how she intended to finish the story. Or at the very least, they could allow Lucinda to peruse Mrs. Smith’s notes and final papers. She opened the magazine and read the address on the cover page.

  She was about to give the directions to her driver when a thought stopped her—What if the editor refuses to see me? The business district in London was run entirely by men. As much as it made Lucinda fume with indignation, an unchaperoned, unmarried young woman wouldn’t make it past the front-desk clerk. If she wanted to be taken seriously by the editor, she would need a man to accompany her. It was preposterous nonsense, but Lucinda was willing to swallow her own pride in order to learn Eurydice’s fate.

  She knocked loudly on the side of the carriage. Mrs. Patton jerked her head in surprise as the carriage slowed to a stop. Lucinda leaned her head out of the open window and called, “Simms, please take us to my father’s office on Tooley Street.”

  “Very good, miss,” the coachman said, and tipped his hat to her.

  Lucinda pulled her head back inside and said with a bright voice, “One more call to make today, Mrs. Patton.”

  “Just as you wish it, dear girl,” Mrs. Patton said. “But keep in mind we have the party at the Freshams’ tonight, and it would be wise for a young lady to rest before the exertions of dancing.”

  “I don’t think I am in any danger of too much exertion walking from the carriage into my father’s office.”

  Mrs. Patton sighed again and Lucinda ignored it. She had not been to her father’s office in nearly four years, but before then, from the age of eight to the awkward age of fourteen, she’d spent nearly every day there. She’d played with dolls surrounded by the ledgers until her father started to give her little tasks to complete. The tasks grew more complicated over the years until she was faster at addition than any of his clerks and could catch a mistake in a number column better than even her father.

  The carriage came to a stop, and Lucinda flung open the door and jumped out before the footman could assist her. The sign on the front of the imposing two-story brick building read RANDALL AND LEAVITT in bold black lettering.

  Ignoring Mrs. Patton’s calls for her to wait, Lucinda opened the door. Immediately she was met by the familiar smell of paper and leather-bound books. She breathed in deeply, inhaling memories. She did not bother to speak to any of the clerks; she knew her way around the office and didn’t need—or want—them to escort her. Instead, she walked past row after row of desks, up the stairs, and down the hall to her father’s office. She knocked on the door but did not wait for a reply before she opened it eagerly, only to find the room empty.

  The room looked exactly the same as she remembered it. She caressed the well-worn desk with her fingers and then touched her father’s wingback chair. She turned to see a familiar elderly man with snowy-white hair and black-beetle eyebrows standing behind her in the doorway.

  “Excuse me, miss,” he said. “May I be of assistance?”

  “Mr. Murphy! How long it has been,” Lucinda said. “How does your family?”

  “My stars, it’s Miss Lucy!”

  “In the flesh,” she said with her most winning smile. Miss Holley always said that a lady’s greatest weapon was her smile.

  “All grown up,” he remarked kindly. “Mrs. Murphy will be so pleased that I saw you. She asked after you only last week. But I am afraid that your father has gone to his warehouse about some business.”

  “It is no great matter,” Lucinda said. “I can wait in his office. I’ve learned that waiting is what ladies do best.”

  Another invaluable lesson from Miss Holley’s Finishing School.<
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  “And a fine lady you’ve turned out to be, Miss Lucy,” Mr. Murphy said. “But your father might not return for several hours. If you need assistance, you should request it of Mr. Randall. He’s in his father’s old office, down the hall.”

  “I’d much rather not,” Lucinda said, sitting in her father’s wingback chair and tapping her fingers on his mahogany desk.

  “Your father may not return to the office at all today, Miss Lucy,” Mr. Murphy said anxiously. “I should hate to have you waste your entire afternoon. You’d better go speak to Mr. Randall.”

  Waiting and doing nothing was what Lucinda did every afternoon, but she did not wish to offend Mr. Murphy, who had always been so kind to her when she was younger. He’d often brought her cakes and cookies that his wife had made. But she cringed at the thought of having to ask Mr. David Randall for assistance. Even though he’d been her first—and only—friend.

  David was the son of her father’s business partner. She’d taught him how to read an accounting ledger, and he’d taught her how to play marbles and quoits. But then David’s father died, leaving him—at only fifteen years old—owner of his father’s half of the business. And then he was no longer her friend.

  He was one of the reasons why she had been sent to a finishing school prison. She’d told him something in confidence, and he’d told his mother, who’d told her father, and Lucinda had found herself packed up and sent away to that ivied prison to become a lady. Just thinking of his self-satisfied face made Lucinda long to slap it.

  Lucinda stood and exhaled. “Very well, Mr. Murphy. I will go and see if Mr. Randall will assist me.”

  She gave him a warm smile as she passed by and found that David’s office door was already open. Unlike her father’s office, which hadn’t changed a whit in twenty years, this room had undergone a transformation. The shelves were lined with books instead of antique snuffboxes, and a large circular globe sat prominently on a much larger white oak desk. And behind it sat Mr. David Randall.