From This Moment (31 page)

“You don’t mean that.”

He paused, closed his eyes, and counted to ten. She was right. If he never saw Stella again, it would be a loss he’d never forget. She’d become a good friend. Even during the difficulty of the past few weeks as they’d navigated through this unwieldy and unwelcome attraction, Stella would forever hold a place of fondness in his heart. He couldn’t even look at her as he blotted the remainder of the spilled ink on his desk.

“Stella, I’m sorry. You’re right, I don’t mean it, but I’m terrified of my business going under, and I don’t have time to indulge your need to hunt down mysteries that will probably never be solved.” He stacked the accounting ledgers in the center of his desk. “And I’m not ready for the kind of relationship you seem to be hoping for. I’m sorry.”

A braver man would have looked her in the face as he spoke, but he wasn’t feeling particularly brave or proud of himself
right now. Stella was a once-in-a-lifetime woman, and he didn’t have the backbone to reach out toward what she offered him. “It would be best if you left now,” he said as kindly as he could while his world crumbled around him.

“I’m sorry for disturbing your day,” she said through gritted teeth, then marched out of his office with the pride of a queen.

After leaving
Scientific World
, Stella stood on the bottom step of the building, staring stupidly at the wide trench of the subway. She’d managed to hold on to the unraveling threads of her dignity before leaving Romulus’s office, but it had been hard.

What was she supposed to do now? Romulus had rejected her again. It hurt even worse than before.

Hurt
was such a mild word for this aching, confused sense of disappointment. No matter how long she lived, she couldn’t imagine meeting anyone quite so perfect for her as Romulus White. He was a bold, flamboyant force of laughter and inspiration who seemed to be her perfect match. He would be the measuring stick against which she judged all future men, and no matter how much she wished it otherwise, she doubted anyone could ever surpass him.

She didn’t know what to do. She stood on the street and watched the dozen carpenters working in the subway trench before her. The rubble and debris from the explosion had been cleared away, the gas lines repaired, and the men had returned to work. The trench had been completed, and cranes lowered pre-assembled wooden braces into the tunnel. Carpenters nailed them into place, filling the air with the steady clatter of hammers. Progress on the monumental infrastructure of this amazing city continued at full steam.

It was as if the explosion had never happened. Her heart
was broken, Clyde might never hear again, and Gwendolyn was dead, but work on the subway plowed ahead. Someday soon, thousands of people would ride on this new and miraculous underground train, and no one would remember the people who had labored and sometimes died during its construction.

It was time to put her broken heart into perspective. Romulus had been honest since the very beginning, but in her arrogance, she’d refused to believe such rules applied to her. She probably deserved a humiliating set down like this. And she shouldn’t have pestered him on a day like today. All her life, she’d hoped to be the type of supportive woman who would prop up her man when he needed strength. Instead, she’d let her emotions overrule her better judgment.

Well, enough moping. It was time to renew her commitment to finding out what had happened to Gwendolyn, and that couldn’t happen if she kept becoming distracted by Romulus.

She wanted a copy of that photograph of Gwendolyn. She’d keep it on her nightstand and use it as a talisman to remind her why she’d come to Boston in the first place. It wasn’t to flirt with Romulus or draw pictures for the magazine.

Without further dawdling, she turned and headed toward Tarnower Street and the photographer’s studio. Michael Townsend had said he would have a copy made for her, but she wanted one now.

Tarnower Street was far from the commotion of subway construction, and for a moment, Stella was able to walk down the cobblestone, tree-lined avenue and see what Boston ought to look like. Shops of tidy red bricks, glossy iron railings, and bow-fronted windows. The photographer’s studio was nestled between a stationer’s shop and a lawyer’s office. A little bell rang when she stepped through the front door.

There was nobody here. The room was small and barren, with
only a few waiting chairs and a counter at the front, bearing a sign.
At work in the dark room. Please do not disturb.

“I’ll be with you in three minutes!” a voice hollered from behind a closed door.

“Thank you,” Stella called back. In the meantime, she admired the photographs hanging on the walls. Gwendolyn was not among the portraits on display, but the photographer’s artistry was astounding. He didn’t merely sit a person in a chair and record the image. He seemed to capture something of each subject’s spirit. One picture showed a withered old woman holding a photograph of a soldier in a Civil War uniform. Had the soldier been her husband? Son? Whatever the story, the old woman’s face contained a blend of pride and grief as she looked directly at the camera with a glint of challenge in her eyes.

Other photographs contained no people but captured a ray of sunshine as it broke over a rusted wagon wheel in a field of rye. Photography was evolving into an entirely new form of artistic expression, but she was surprised to see it on display here at a photographer’s studio. There was no money in such photographs—only portraiture could pay a photographer’s bills.

The door to the dark room opened, and the acrid scent of developing chemicals wafted from the open door. A man with shaggy gray hair emerged, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Peter McKendry,” he introduced himself. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“I am hoping to commission two copies of a photograph you took last year. Gwendolyn Westergaard,” she said.

“Certainly, ma’am! What a lovely young lady. She is doing well, I take it?”

Why should she expect this man to know of Gwendolyn’s passing? It had barely warranted a brief paragraph buried deep in the Boston newspapers.

“No. My sister passed away in December.”

After his initial shock, the photographer expressed all the proper condolences, then proceeded to open his ordering book and write up her request. While he completed the paperwork, Stella continued to admire the photographs on display.

She nodded toward the portrait of the steely-eyed old woman holding the picture of the soldier. “There
must
be a story behind that portrait.”

“Indeed, ma’am. The woman is Mrs. Henry Grosjean. She and her husband had plans for missionary service abroad, but the war interrupted their dream. Her husband was killed at Chancellorsville, but after the war, she sold everything and headed out on her own. That photograph was taken when she returned to Boston after thirty-two years of service in India.”

Stella gazed at the woman with new respect. Her husband’s death must have been devastating, but Mrs. Grosjean hadn’t let it derail her dream. Such fortitude was humbling, for Stella had done little but indulge in anger and bitterness since Gwendolyn’s death. That bitterness had blotted out the finer aspects of her character, spurring anger at God for the injustice dealt to her family.

It seemed Mrs. Grosjean peered out of the photograph, straight into the moral failings of Stella’s soul.
Do you love God only when he is good to you?

Stella flinched. It was as if the old woman had spoken the words, but they came from inside Stella. It made her uncomfortable, and she stepped away to examine a photograph of dew drops glistening on a cobweb.

“You have a very unique style,” she commented. “I love the artistry in your work.”

He straightened in pride. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ve had the studio for two years now, and it has truly been an honor to be able to do this sort of work.”

“I am surprised at how many landscapes you have on display. I thought portraiture was the only way to make photography profitable.”

“It’s the fastest, but there are plenty of other ways photographers are using their skills these days. Newspapers are using photographs for big events. Then there is more mundane work like pictures for product catalogs or architectural work. I got my start photographing for the police department.” He shuddered a bit. “I’m glad I’m not there anymore.”

“What did you do for the police department?”

“Mostly booking photographs for criminals. Sometimes I went to photograph a crime scene. The worst was the murder victims. Like I said, I’m glad I’m not there anymore.”

Stella’s mouth went dry. The medical examiner claimed to have taken no photographs during Gwendolyn’s autopsy because he did not consider it a suspicious death, but might the police have taken one after they pulled Gwendolyn from the river? At that point, they would not have known if it was a case of foul play or not.

She forced her tone to remain calm, even though every nerve ending in her body seized with tension. “Do the photographers work for the police, or are they commissioned case by case?” She’d already been frozen out by the police department, but if their photographers were booked for special jobs . . .

“They are commissioned by the job. The police don’t have a dark room or space for equipment, so a bunch of photographers lease space at a shared studio near the wharves. The police always know where to find a photographer when they need one.”

She swallowed hard, her mind whirling. It was a long shot, but one she needed to pursue. If there was a photograph of Gwendolyn taken on that morning anywhere in the city, she was going to find it.

16

T
he White Oak Health Resort was nestled in the middle of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. The sprawling lodge looked like a place where rugged outdoorsmen and hunters might come spilling out the door, shotguns in hand as they trekked into the wilderness. That illusion was destroyed when nurses wearing white uniforms and little folded caps on their heads pushed patients in wheelchairs outside, walking them to the wide slate terrace that had an excellent view of the mountains. Some of the patients came for the thin air to recover after pneumonia, but most suffered from an assortment of broken bones, nerve complaints, or other disorders that required long-term care.

Evelyn furrowed her brow as she headed to the small room that served as a library for the resort’s patients. None of the books she’d brought to Clyde so far had been of interest, but perhaps today she could stumble upon the perfect novel or history book that would cut through the veil of his melancholy and spark his curiosity back to life.

Had she done the right thing by bringing him here? It didn’t
feel like it. The doctors in Boston had advised complete rest and immobility, and in those first terrible days after the explosion, he had been in such excruciating pain from every jolt or vibration that she’d assumed the health resort was Clyde’s best chance of letting his shattered eardrums recover.

They hadn’t. Each day, he let her push him in a wheelchair onto the terrace, where he stared in stony silence at the mountainside. It was chilly, and she always draped a blanket over his lap, making him look even more like an invalid. His ears no longer hurt, so the wheelchair was no longer necessary, but the majority of his day was still spent in a chair, staring into the distance. When she brought him books, he managed a polite smile in acknowledgment, but it vanished quickly. Within a few minutes, the book would lay open on his lap as he went back to staring at the mountainside. There had been no improvement in his hearing.

She squatted down to get a better view of the British literature collection. Might Shakespeare interest him? She’d just opened a copy of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
when a nurse entered the library.

“Mrs. Brixton?” she asked.

Evelyn stood. She’d resumed using her married name at the clinic. It avoided the strange looks and made tending Clyde easier, even though they still did not share the same room. “Yes?”

“A telegram has arrived for your husband, but he’s sleeping. Shall I leave it with you?”

Evelyn took the telegram and thanked the nurse. Should she open it? It might be urgent, but Clyde got so little sleep, and she didn’t want to awaken him unnecessarily. Opening the note, she quickly read the demoralizing news.

The Boston Transit Commission had fired him. They didn’t use that term, of course. They used pretty language thanking
him for his service and wishing him a speedy recovery, then suggested he need not feel compelled to return to Boston. They had hired another engineer to oversee the Tremont segment of the subway, and his services were no longer needed. She sagged as she read the note.

This telegram was going to be a kick in the teeth. Maybe she shouldn’t even give it to him, for he didn’t need this kind of stress.

She went for a walk among the pine-scented trails that meandered around the resort. The peaceful calls of mourning doves and the gentle rustle of pine needles were in stark contrast to the turmoil in her mind. This latest news was going to devastate Clyde, and she’d give anything if she could shield him from the blow.