My vision swam, my mind traveling back to long-buried memories, glimpses of Eleanor’s earliest days, how my feverish baby had almost perished in my arms. How I’d felt certain that the death of my child would be a blow from which I would never recover. Ned had already lost a wife. And now this fresh blow. A blow to our home, to our entire family.
* * *
We followed behind Halcourt’s coffin in a silent, somber procession, Eleanor and Adelaide clutching my hands as we hobbled along in our heavy black garb, and Ned keeping his distance, cloaked in a blackness entirely his own. A dark and unspeaking figure, though his mottled face showed the extent of his brokenness.
Ned wished to bury Halcourt near Brookville, beside the sea and the wife whom he’d lost there, and so after the church ceremony, we walked in silence to the cemetery. By that time, the crisp fall air had just begun to brush the world around us, tinting the lush green trees with the first hints of reds and golds, but those of us there that day wore only black crepe and pale, ashen faces. I took Ned’s hand in mine when the priest said the final blessing over the coffin, but his fingers were limp, and his eyes did not meet mine.
Back at the house, after I’d said the final farewells to Frank and Edna, after I’d kissed the exhausted girls in their beds, Ned and I sat alone on the veranda, staring out at a dark surf rippled with moonlight. The same place where I’d been sitting when I’d heard the news of Halcourt, I realized with a shudder. I looked sideways at Ned. Save for a few words, my usually irrepressible husband had been silent for hours, days even. Ever since he’d witnessed the horrific accident that had taken his boy’s life.
An hour passed, or maybe three—I couldn’t tell. I could hear the muffled sounds from within the house, where the maids and footmen were clearing the final china dishes and folding the last of the stained linen for the laundresses. I made to rise, to leave Ned in his silent vigil, but as I stood, he reached for me, gripping my hand in his. He’d been so inaccessible for so long that this sudden urgency gave me pause, and I stared into his face. I noticed, with a slight jolt, that his eyes were aflame. “Marjorie,” he said, his voice sounding choked.
“Yes, my love,” I answered, kneeling beside him. I raised my hand to touch his cheek.
“Don’t,” he said, and then he erupted into sobs, his face crumpling onto my shoulder. “Don’t leave me. I can’t…not you, too. I couldn’t bear it. What would I do if I lost you, too?”
His body trembled, and I wrapped my arms around him. “There, Ned. There, darling. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.” I rocked him like a child, and to my relief, he let me. “I’m here, Ned.” I said it over and over, my words a low, soothing vow, as my husband wept.
I knew it then, with leaden certainty: I would never be able to take away Ned’s pain. I would never be able to bring back his son, and thus I would never be able to give him the thing he’d most need and want for the rest of his life.
But there was one thing I could do: I could give Ned another one. My husband had told me, in the first days of our marriage, that he’d love for me to have his baby. So that, I decided, was what I would do.
Chapter 22
New York City
1922
Ned trooped into my bedroom, and I could tell from the glimmer in his eyes that he had something pressing to tell me. It was good to see him smile again. A welcome glimpse of sunlight after a thick and impenetrable cloud finally slips aside.
And it was surprising to see him looking so fresh, so full of vim that morning: we’d been out late the night before, dining with the Woolworths, the Vanderbilts, and the Morgans in the massive ballroom of the Astors’ Waldorf-Astoria. I was still in bed, even at this uncharacteristically late morning hour.
Ned sat down, perching beside me on the edge of the bed. He was impossibly good-looking in the suit he was wearing, all crisp folds and dapper lines. He leaned forward and ran his fingers playfully along the neckline of my loose blue silk dressing gown. “Mrs. Hutton, I have news for you.”
“And what is that, Mr. Hutton?” I wished he’d shut the door and join me in bed. But apparently he had other business on his mind, as he went on: “I’ve set a new personal best today.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “This is the first time in my life that I’ve made a million dollars for my wife between breakfast and lunch.”
My mouth fell open in a gape. Ned went on, “That’s you, wife.” He beamed at me as he cocked a light eyebrow and leaned closer on the bed. “How about a kiss?”