By Atonia Walpole

(Picture creations also by Atonia)

Part 1

Chapter 1

I have been lost my whole life but it wasn’t my fault being young and without wings. Wheeled and carried and driven from one place to another before I could walk or talk properly, I formed no opinions about my surroundings. That changed the year I turned fourteen and the fog began to clear. I could see clearly and with that newfound clarity came a deep and everlasting disappointment with those that begat me.

My father, as I shall describe him, was a tall slender man with a mane of auburn hair which he wore long and sometimes tied back with a black velvet ribbon. His features were even and pleasant, with a forward brow and a straight nose over thin lips that might have been cruel in another’s face. There was nothing cruel about him.

He was a painter of portraits and was away much of the time. We traveled with him when it was convenient and there were quarters available. He was quite well known for his talent. His portraits of men were always serious and endowed with a manly presence and strength which no doubt his subjects rarely possessed. His portraits of women were given an ethereal, soft glow. He gave them something else as well. I have often thought of his leaving something of himself among the grand houses along the east coast. Somewhere I may have a half sibling stumbling about in ignorance.

He smelled of linseed and his nails were never clean of paint.

I haven’t mentioned that my parents came over from England three months before I was born. That I was conceived there gives me a connection, a link if you will, and perhaps more,, but I will get to that later.

My mother, my mother was a crushed, blushed rose. When you enter my house, for it is my house now, there is a portrait of my mother that my father painted before they left England. A more beautiful woman I have never found. My father painted her whilst she was married to another. It was to be a gift to her husband. Instead my father fell in love with her and her with him. They created quite a scandal and fled to America. Her husband subsequently divorced her. Meanwhile I was born in a one room flat in Boston.

A crushed blushed rose. I was fourteen when I discovered quite by accident the scent that was my mother. She always had about her person a small silver-capped bottle. I can’t say that I ever saw her actually drink from it, but she did. Looking back through the years, I can understand her pain.

We either had money or we didn’t. My father was a talented painter but he was not a good manager. I can remember fleeing rent agents with nothing more than the clothes on our backs and hiding in closets when there was no escape. I also remember blissful summers in grand summer houses and in others of its kind.

Her hair was like honey and softly curled about her face. An English rose bloomed in her cheeks. Her eyes were large and dark and concealed much. Her lips were full and pink and her arms soft when she held me as a child and read from whatever books were available to us.

The beginning of my fourteenth year my father was granted a commission to paint the daughter of a New York industrialist. It was not a time of plenty and he went forth on his own from the small seaside town in Maine. We were at the time renting rooms above a haberdashery. My mother created hatbands and that kept us housed for the moment.

It was just after my birthday in February that he left, promising to send for us when he received his first installment. By April the letters we wrote to him were being returned unopened and stamped with ugly smeared black ink. My mother spent a lot of time in her room and to keep our rooms I began to make hatbands, never telling the owner of the establishment that she had become incapable of working. I delivered them downstairs and took the orders for the next batch back upstairs with me. I may have lied and said she was unable to go up and down the stairs because of a foot or her back. I don’t remember exactly how I kept up the masquerade.

I remember her asking me to purchase medicine for her at the pharmacy. It was, of course, not medicine at all. Perhaps she had a certain arrangement with the chemist. The label consisted of a doctor’s name and the word remedy. The remedy didn’t work for my mother.

It was the middle of April when the check came from him, drawn on a New York City bank. He sent her $300.00 and a note in his hand that said, “I am so very sorry.”  She took to her bed for a week. I was now working in the shop downstairs as an apprentice to the hatter. She came into the shop mid-morning, dressed in one of her best dresses with a little hat that matched. The veil concealed her eyes and whatever might have been there. She hugged me and pressed into my hand a leather wallet. The wallet contained $200.00.

She told me she was going to New York to bring back my father.

The following, which I shall recount, was pieced together by the New York City police. I read the report in Mr. Peter Brigg’s office, attorney for the industrialist whose name I shall not mention.

My mother checked into a small hotel on April 15, 1904. The next two days were unaccountable. On the 17^th of April she arrived at the house of Mr. A-. Speaking to the butler she asked if a Mr. Charles Ambrose H- might be there. She was shown into a receiving room. He arrived shortly thereafter, pale of face, as described by the butler. Dressed in afternoon attire of the finest his New York tailor could fashion.

The butler recalls raised voices before the shot was fired. He ran into the room to find the woman who called herself Mrs. H- lying across his body, sobbing uncontrollably. As he approached she sat back and fired again with the small derringer at her temple.

The two shots brought the whole household into the downstairs receiving room, including the newly-married Julia H-.

It was three weeks before I was aware of any of this. My mother left a letter addressed to me on the dresser in her room at the hotel. It was eventually given to the police. A Mr. Briggs contacted me by mail. I was staggered.

I regained my wits and traveled by train to New York. Mr. Briggs received me at his office. I was given the letter she wrote to me and in it she explained the circumstances of my birth. My father neglected to marry her as he promised when they left England.

She also stated that my father may indeed not be my father at all and that she suspected she was pregnant when she met him. I did not believe her. She was most distressed when the letter was penned.

As I sat in Mr. Briggs’ office trying to understand exactly what a bastard was, he presented another option for me. If indeed what she had written was true, then I was not a bastard at all. I was the son of Thomas Blackwell. Lord Blackwell.

I considered this may be true and as Mr. Briggs suggested she may not have known for sure who my father was. It seemed I had a choice. I had been brought up in ignorance of Lord Blackwell. I always assumed that Blackwell was my mother’s maiden name and why my father allowed her to name me as she did is now a mystery unless he too suspected he wasn’t the father of her child.

I have since dropped H- as my last name partly to save myself from the embarrassment of their deaths and because my name is John Charles Blackwell.

Chapter 2

My heart went out to him when Mr. Briggs brought him to the house. Standing there in the room where his mother and father died. He wanted to see the place where it happened. I agreed, of course. My father would have nothing to do with him and left the house so that he would not have to meet him.

As I remember the first meeting, his pants were too short, his hair too long and had not been combed in some time. He held his cap in his hands, twisting it around . Regardless of what’s been said, he had the look of his father about him. His father’s eyes were blue and I’m told his mother's were hazel. Between them they produced a green-eyed boy with chestnut colored hair.

There was a maturity about him that’s not often found in boys of his age, a quiet grace in his movements and even in his dire circumstances he held himself erect with his chin up and with a direct look. He was a beautiful young man.

I was six years his senior and a widow. I was devastated by Charles’s death. He came to paint my portrait and stole my heart. So much was revealed to me about Charles in the days that followed his death. Whether or not he married his child’s mother no longer mattered to me. John’s situation was not of his making.

My own mother died when I was thirteen and so I was in sympathy with him. He was a welcome diversion from grief.

I was not a welcome sight for him. His father had left him and his mother and married me. It was a despicable thing for him to have done. As much s I loved him, this was unforgivable. I didn’t blame John for the cold, hard look he gave me when we were introduced by Mr. Briggs.

Mr. Briggs has been our attorney for years, long before my mother passed away. I do believe he is ageless. Why he took up this boy’s case without pay is for him to know . I have not asked and he has not said. John was penniless except for the $175.00 he had in a leather wallet. Mr. Briggs asked him if he had a trade. He answered that he’d been a hatter’s apprentice.

I left the room to gather my thoughts. The boy spoke well and I was later to learn that he’d also been educated well by his mother. He was Charles’s son and I couldn’t let him go into trade. I had the money that my mother left me so I needn’t bother father at all. I returned to the sitting room to hear mention of lodgings. I proposed to pay for John’s education if he might be put in school instead of trade.

It was all arranged quietly so as not to upset my father, who was still upset by my marriage. He’d been furious and quite rightly, I suppose. When I think on it now I should have been upset myself but I was in love for the first time in my life and whether he was a penniless painter of portraits or a prince made no difference to me. I loved him.

John was enrolled in one of the best prep schools in New York. He was a fine student. I paid for his tuition and he was given an allowance.  Mr. Briggs took him to his tailor and arranged for his wardrobe and whatever a young man needs. I suppose it might be said that between us we adopted John Charles Blackwell. He was quick to accept the advantages offered but still I detected a reserve in him. I suspected that reserve was resentment. I received reports of his education but saw little of him during those years.

Mr. Briggs kept in contact with him and took him for school holidays until he entered college. There he made his own circle of friends. During those years I remarried, much to my father’s relief. He is a good man but, alas, the fire that drove me to my first marriage is not there. Still we are comfortable with each other.

It was Christmas and John was in New York with Mr. Briggs for the holidays. It was his twenty-first year. I had not seen him in over three years. We hosted a party and Mr. Briggs brought him along. That night he was introduced to New York society, such as it was. Most of the guests were associates of my father and my husband. As a perceived eligible bachelor, John was surrounded by young ladies most of the evening but from time to time I would glance at him and find him looking back. Immediately he would drop his gaze.

He was the most handsome young man in New York. He had a smile that lit up his face and his eyes and it tore at my heart knowing that smile was not for me. His manners were impeccable and he made his dutiful way around the room dancing with the young ladies and sending them twittering away to their mothers with hope ringing loud in their ears.

Mr. Briggs was noticeably proud of him and I joined him in that feeling. I will not deny a certain other feeling took me that night. He spoke to me only briefly when he arrived but I had the feeling he was aware of me as I was of him.

Mr. Briggs pulled me aside and revealed to me that he was petitioning Sir Thomas Blackwell to acknowledge him as his son. Recent information had reached him that Sir Thomas was now childless, his son and daughter having died from the influenza that also took his wife last year. He had no heir. He was hopeful for John. As for myself, I always believed John to be Charles’ son. He had his father’s eyes, though they be green and not blue, and his father’s profile.

At one point I found myself standing alone and quite suddenly he appeared at my side.

“Mrs. B-, I wanted to thank you for a lovely evening. I have enjoyed myself thoroughly and now must take my leave.”

“I’m so very glad you came. You must come again. Please do come again.”

He bowed slightly and brushed my hand with his lips. I turned to watch him leave the room for his hat and coat. My father appeared.

“Like father, like son, eh?” The look he gave me was one of warning.

I was quite angry with my father for spoiling the moment. He knew I was the young man’s benefactor. How he found out I do not know. Mr. Briggs may have told him as he was obligated to do. He never spoke to me about it.

Three days later I was in my sitting room and his card was delivered to me by our butler. I had not had a conversation with John…ever. I have three letters he sent me when he was in prep school and I know they were of an obligatory nature. I went down to the receiving room where he waited. He stood when I entered and bowed slightly.

“Mrs. B-, how good of you to receive me.”

I had always thought of him as John but his formality caused me to respond in kind. “Mr. Blackwell, I’m glad you’ve come. Please, be seated.”

He sat on the edge of a chair and I took one opposite him. He was nervous and fiddled with an ornament on the table beside his chair. The silence was beginning to wear. Finally he placed the ornament back on the table and looked directly into my eyes.

“I…I don’t know quite what to say to you. I’ve taken your charity with greedy hands for the past seven years. Not once have I thanked you for your generosity. I would like to do so now. Without it I should be making hats.”

“I’m sure you would have made an excellent hat but I am glad you are not required to do so. Do not speak of charity. I was in a position to assist you in a time of need. I, too, lost my mother at an early age. I was 13 when she passed away. I loved your father and as you were his son, I wanted to do something for you.”

“I appreciate what you have done, however, it must stop. I am 21 years of age and I cannot continue to live off you. I’ve obtained employment in the law offices of a prominent lawyer not far from Harvard. I have a scholarship for the next year of college.”

“Do be sure for it is of no matter to me. The money was left to me by my mother.  It was my own to do with as I pleased and it pleased me to see you educated as a gentleman.”

“I resented you for a long time. You were the other woman, the woman who caused me to become an orphan at the age of fourteen. I’ve gotten past that now. I can look back and see and understand what happened.”

“Can you? I had no idea Charles had a son. Once I saw you I knew what I must do. You were good for me at that time. I was never able to express my sorrow for your loss. It was a tragic situation for both of us.”

“Yes, it was. Mr. Briggs has been like a father to me or…grandfather.” There came that smile if only briefly. “He’s guided me in the right direction.”

“I understand he’s petitioned Lord Blackwell.”

He looked aside for a moment. “The only thing he has is the letter my mother wrote to me before…before the incident. That is not a lot of evidence. I’m not expecting anything from it.”

It was still hard for me to believe he was here. “How long will you be in town?”

“I leave tomorrow by train.”

“All these years…I wondered what we might say to each other if we should ever talk.”

“That was my fault.”

“I’m very glad you came by. I…I would hate you to think that…well, you are welcome to come. I guess what I’m trying to say is…” I was rambling and my face flushed hot.

“I’d like to see you again if I may.”

“Yes.” I was able to answer. The smile in his eyes did not reach his lips.

“Good. I must go now.”

I stood with him and walked him to the door.

“Thank you…again,” he said, looking into my eyes. That look drew me in and I hoped I did not lean towards him as I was wont to do. He had that effect on me…as did his father.

Chapter 3

My education has taken up half my life, or so it seems. At last I could see the end of it as far as structure goes. I suppose life will be a continuing subject to study, at least I hoped so. This last year has been filled with sadness and a happiness I never thought to…but I am a gentleman and I shall not write of it.

Sadness, of course, because of the passing of Mr. Briggs. I had a telegram and went forthwith to New York. The service was well attended with many clients but little family. I knew he had a daughter but it was impossible for her to attend as she has removed to California with her husband. A few old souls attended; their relationship escapes me. The only bright flower in the church was Mrs. Julia B-.

I was called to be present at the reading of his will and was quite surprised to find he’d left me a great deal of money. I don’t know what possessed him to do that. I  am certainly not a blood relative or…but then he hadn’t a son and many times he said to me ‘If I had a son he would be like you’. One doesn’t know how to reply to something like that. He left me his law books. Me, without a permanent home or room to store them in my rooms at Harvard. Mrs. Julia B- suggested I store them at their house as they have plenty of room. She was most kind.

Mr. B- is…I found him fairly vacant. Sorry, but that’s how I saw him. He had little conversation except about business. He engaged in no sport or anything that isn’t on Wall Street. How dull that must be. He is at least a decade older than his wife.

Aside from my all too brief visit to New York. I’m sorry that doesn’t sound quite…of course the purpose of my visit was very sad for I did care for Mr. Briggs and I do appreciate what he bequeathed to me. Surely I am undeserving. I only meant that it was nice to see Mr. and Mrs. B-.

I set out to say that the rest of the year had been rather busy. With my final papers and my part-time job I had little time for anything else or any particular company…as might have been…available.

On the eve of my graduation many of my friends' families were planning parties and I was invited but I declined. The young men I met there and enjoyed working with and playing with were from a different world. I have no family now that Mr. Briggs has passed. I thought  to accept my degree on the morrow with no one but an audience of strangers and God looking on. It was up to me where I went from there. I’d been offered permanent employment at the law firm where I worked but I declined their offer as I did not want to live there. I planned to go back to New York.

J.C. Blackwell

He doesn’t know I’ve come and I’m not sure he will be pleased. I had to. He’s worked so hard for this pending moment I felt someone had to witness it. Someone had to share his memories. I’ve brought my maid with me and, as I explained to my husband, we would only be staying for the graduation and go back on the evening train. I’m not sure he was listening behind his morning paper.

I’ve been debating whether I should call on him and let him know I am here. Common sense won out. I really…I cannot go to his rooms. After the  incident in the storage room I don’t trust myself with him. I still cannot believe I was so forward as to kiss him. As God is my witness if he hadn’t been a gentleman I do not know what I would have done. I’ve gone mad where he’s concerned. Totally mad.

Julia Bennett

I was wretched. I behaved like the lowest, basest beast alive. I cannot deny the attraction had been there for some time but I had hoped I had enough decency to conduct myself in a gentlemanly manner. I failed.

I now had my diploma. I walked across the platform in my cap and gown, stepped down and my eyes went straight to her sitting on the end of a row. She stood and clapped for me. I looked for Mr. B- but she was alone.

After the ceremony I found her in the sea of peoples and caught her up against me in the sheer joy of the moment. Something happened in that moment. I hardly remember where we went next. I do know we had a meal and a bottle of champagne. I can kid myself and blame it on the grape but I know better.

The sun came up and I had been sitting there for six hours. I would like to have greeted the day with her but I had done enough damage.

J.C. Blackwell

I’m not sure what’s to become of me. I have seduced him and taken him to my bed. The evening train was forgotten along with who I am. My poor maid was left to find herself a room. She is discreet and I shall have a talk with her before we board the first train back to New York. I’m not sure how many sins I have committed over the night but I have no regrets. He is, he is more than his father was and I didn’t want him to go.

I’ve fallen in love with him but I know as I sit here that it cannot end well. It would be better if I do not see him again.

Julia Bennett

I went  back in New York. Mr. Briggs house was up for sale but I was given permission to stay there until it sold. It has been my home away from school since I was fourteen. I was now twenty-two and I needed to establish my own house.

I did little or nothing upon returning. I had letters of introduction from the firm I worked with at Harvard and they were still in my case. I was restless and spent my days walking the streets, eating little and drinking too much. I was supposed to be finding employment but I couldn’t concentrate.  I could have gone to work for Mr. Brigg’s firm but I thought he’d given me enough. It was time I stood on my own.

The nights were worse for I could not get her out of my mind. It was worse than opium. I needed her.

J.C. Blackwell

As is our usual custom, we have moved to Long Island for the summer.  Barely had we settled in with our houseguests who come and go and my husband has gone back to the city. He does not know how to relax or to go on holiday.

I’m kept busy with our friends. There is always something to do. A party tonight two houses down the street.

Oh, why am I writing this drivel? I care little for parties or junkets now. The truth is I want to be with John. I’ve not heard from him since his graduation. I think I have embarrassed him  or perhaps he is disgusted with me and no longer thinks of me or wants to see me. I am no longer his benefactor…no longer…he has no need of me. Some young girl will have him now.

I am miserable and it is a misery of my own making.

Julia Bennett

I broke down one day and stopped at her house. The butler said she would be at their summer house on Long Island. I asked for Mr. B- but he was at his office. I’m not sure now what I would have done had he been there. I am a fool of the highest caliber. I had her address in my pocket…her husband was not with her. Knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

J.C. Blackwell

Chapter 4

He arrived today driving Mr. Briggs’s car. It gave me a shock when I first saw it in the drive. It also gave me a thrill, which I have carried safely in my breast where others may not see. I must be careful of Fanny Lewis.

He was full of himself, wanting to talk to me in a house full of guests. I can’t help but be pleased. I was so afraid he would think ill of me. I’ve asked him to stay and so I know I am mad, but what a glorious feeling it is to be mad. His presence has raised much curiosity and I have lied and said he was the son of a friend. It was only a half lie if a lie at all. He would have been my stepson had his father lived. Was he still?

There are plenty of young single women around, enough to give distraction and he is very good at playing the game, almost too good. There is happiness in his eyes when he looks at me and more than that…or do I flatter myself?

Julia Bennett

I jumped full in and as Julia said, we are all mad. I was playing tennis with the Astors, sailing with the Rockefellers and playing with the idle rich. In other words I committed the same crimes my friends from college were. I ran into a few there. It is a strange little community. I was drinking summer wine and feasting on her.

I had not bothered to look down the road to see what famine may be waiting. I was in love with her and living the moment as if it might go on forever. If I sound fatalistic it is because her husband arrived at odd weekends and I could not look at her for giving myself away.

I was been summoned back to the city by Mr. Briggs' partner, Mr. Hammond. I had an appointment the next morning. The city was gray and lifeless and I did not want to be there. I do not know why I was there. Had it been anyone else I should have told them to stuff it.

J.C. Blackwell

I felt as though the sun had gone behind a cloud when he left but it has given me time to give way to my illness. I have been ill for some time. It comes and goes and I cannot blame it on what I have eaten. I cannot sail with him any longer. My maid has gone for the doctor.

Dear, dear John. I have never been so in love. It is raining today. Perhaps that contributes to the sadness I feel. I wish he were here with me. July is beginning. There should be sun and not rain. There is to be a big 4^th of July party this weekend. John said he would be back for it.

I wish he was here.

Julia Bennett

I fixed my eyes on the point of a pen lying on Mr. Hammond’s desk. If I stared at it long enough I would be back on Long Island. But of course it did not send me there. No. I sat in his office with the smell of leather and dust, and the rain washing down the outside of the window behind his desk. I sat there while he read to me a letter received addressed to Mr. Briggs, which he opened. For the last three years of his life Mr. Briggs tried to have me recognized by Lord Blackwell as his son.

Lord Blackwell’s solicitors have written for him. He is dying and requested that I come. Mr. Hammond asked should he make my travel arrangements and send a reply to Lord Blackwell’s solicitors as to when I might be arriving.

I was struck dumb and then I asked for a little time to consider. Time was of the essence and I understand this but there was much to think about. I asked for the night before I gave a reply.

As I had yet to seek employment there was nothing to keep me there except Julia. She weighed heavily in my decision.

I asked Mr. Hammond to book a state room for myself and a lady. I loved her to distraction and I could not imagine my life without her. We were to leave on July 5, 1911. Now that I had made plans, the weight of decision had been lifted. I spent time getting my affairs in New York in order.

J.C. Blackwell

My mind is still hazy from the sedative. I became hysterical after the doctor explained my illness as pregnancy. My husband has been sent for. I dread his coming. It is not his child nor could it have ever been his. It is all over.

He is not a cruel man but he is my husband and expects certain behavior from me. I have shamed him, disappointed him, and never again will he look at me with his kind eyes.

A weight has descended on me that no one can lift, not even my darling John.

Julia Bennett

I arrived back on Long Island full of hope for the future. I will admit a certain excitement building at the thought of Julia at my side. Instead of a 4^th of July party at the house, it had a rather closed and unfriendly look about it. I parked and went to the door. The butler let me in and I asked after Mrs. B-.

“She is ill, Sir,” he replied and I started for the staircase. “Mr. Blackwell, her husband is with her.”

I stopped and considered that for a moment then I went up to my room and packed what belongings I had left there. It was my intention at the time to take Julia with me. I had no idea of her illness or what had befallen her but I thought whatever it was could be treated by a ship’s doctor. I stowed my bag in the car and went back inside. I asked the butler if he would get word to Mrs. B- that I was here and wished to speak with her.

Instead of an interview, Mr. B- descended the stairs and asked me to come with him into his study. With a glance at the butler I followed him. He sat behind his desk and without asking me to sit, pulled out a check book and wrote out a check. He pushed it across the desk and asked that I go and never see his wife again.

With a young man’s weapons of confidence and a certain bravado, I replied that was impossible because I loved her. He came from behind the desk and pressed the check in my hand. He begged that I not cause a scene and quietly leave. I asked to see her…for the last time. Reluctantly he agreed. It must have cost him much.

I ran up the stairs to her room. She lay there pale and limp with her face wet with tears. Down on my knees by her bedside, I held her for a moment and kissed her. I told her of the letter from Lord Blackwell’s solicitors and that I had booked passage for the two of us. I begged her to come with me now but she refused. She was unwell.

I asked the nature of her illness and she told me she was carrying my child. I cannot express in words what went through me at that time. It was ever more important now that she come with me. Still she refused. I showed her the check her husband had written and that he thought I would be willing to go away and never see her again. I kissed her face and told her I could never do as he asked. The check I tore up in front of her.

I pleaded with her, describing a life we might have in England, a life of which I had no idea but that we would be together, have our child and live in love without a care for anyone else. She smiled and held my face and kissed me and said she loved me.

Mr. B- appeared in the doorway and asked that I leave. I whispered to her that I would be waiting on the ship for her. As I passed Mr. B- I tossed the torn up check in his face. He grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye. I never backed down and he released me but followed me down the stairs. As I exited the house a fireworks display began. I looked up at the colored stars and convinced myself this was going to work.

The shot must have been lost in the sound of the fireworks, perhaps even as I stood there watching the stars fall.

I spent the last night in Mr. Briggs’s house and dropped off the keys early that morning to Mr. Hammond. He wished me well. I was in a fever to get to the dock to look for Julia for it had not  occurred to me that she would not be there. We loved each other, she carried my child and I offered her a way out of her marriage. I went ahead and let my trunks go aboard and frantically searched the crowd. Finally I had to go aboard and I did with the hopes that she would already be there waiting in the stateroom. The room was empty save for a small package left on the bed. I began to feel the world falling from beneath my feet when I picked it up. It was her journal and tucked inside was a short note from her maid.

The shot must have been lost in the sound of the fireworks. Perhaps even as I stood there watching the colored stars fall.

J. C. Blackwell

ON TO PART TWO

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