Chapter Twenty-four

Violet didn’t take a full breath for at least two hours after Sadie and Charlie came out of the water.

Every time she closed her eyes, those horrific seconds played again. And again. Charlie lunging for Sadie as her sister toppled and swayed and splashed into the water. Had it been purposeful? Even in that instant, she’d wondered.

But she’d never expected what happened next—Charlie, with two long strides and a splash, also disappearing into blackness. She’d run, screaming for help, but every stride seemed to take a year. In the time it took her to race down the gangway, the planet tilted and all that was dear to her slid off and away, out of her grasp, gone forever.

But then! When Charlie had come up with Sadie’s limp body, when Sadie had coughed, when Charlie had sat, sound and whole, on the dock, the pent-up terror of those few minutes had streamed out of her. Every watery loss of the past year spouted in a wail of agony. Charlie had locked her shuddering shoulders in a hard grip as she keened against his chest, grieving for what had not—but almost—happened.

Now they were back at the Breakers, Charlie and Sadie still wrapped in yacht club blankets. Anna was getting Sadie into a hot bath. Mary had Sadie’s shoes and dress drying in the kitchen, hopeful that they wouldn’t be stained by either the salt water or the champagne.

Violet and Charlie stood outside his door.

“I’m so glad you came back,” she said, taking his hand. “I don’t know how I can ever—” her voice caught.

“You don’t need to thank me. Really. Not ever.”

She smiled at him, then remembered he couldn’t see it, so she leaned in closer instead. “You were incredibly brave. Do you think Sadie will be okay?”

“Are you asking about her body or her mind?”

“Both.

“Yes.” He ran a hand around her back. “I do. She has a caring sister. And a hot bath will do wonders. Will you be all right?”

She lifted her head. “I think I will. A moment like that has the power to put things into perspective, doesn’t it? It cleared away a lot of the chaff in my thinking.”

“What are you left with, now that the chaff is gone?”

“I think I’ve let small things gather sticky clay and moss, so they wound up larger than they actually are.”

“I may have been guilty of that myself.”

“Let’s promise each other that we won’t do that anymore.”

His other arm encircled her waist, and he kissed the first thing his lips met, her forehead. “Agreed. Small things are hereby no longer important. But you know, large things still are. And since I was incredibly brave today, I’m going to go out on a limb and ask a question I’ve wanted to ask for days. Will you tell me what you want? In life?”

“But aren’t you cold?”

“Not really. Is your dress getting wet?”

It was. She lied and said no. “But regarding your question. Let’s see. I want women to get the vote, naturally. That goes without saying.”

He nodded, his face expectant.

“I want satisfying work.” Her gaze floated up to his wet hair, falling over the tips of his ears. “Work that I feel good at, successful at. But that also makes a difference in the world.”

“You don’t have to work for pay,” he said. “You could think of it as a vocation. A calling.”

“I think I do need to work for money, actually. You’ve no idea how bad Sadie’s gambling became. We’re in pretty difficult straights.”

He fumbled in his jacket pocket. “Alva told me. Sort of. She made it clear to me at the same moment she convinced Reggie to tear up the checks and the promissory note. And to return these.” He held up Mother’s jade earrings and ruby necklace.

Violet gasped. “She did? Are you joking?”

“Completely serious. He’s promised to forgive the whole debt. You’re back on solid footing.”

She sagged against him, taking this in. “Glory. All right, then. I want a vocation.”

Her head leaned against his shoulder, and he adjusted the yacht club blanket to wrap around them both. “I’d like to travel. I studied French in school and have never been able to really use it. I’d like to do that, after the war. Or in Quebec.”

She pulled air into her lungs and listened to the stillness of the house. Charlie’s heart beat near her ear, giving her courage.

“I want to get married. Have children.” She stepped back in order to see his face. “I’d like to do these things with you.”

His eyes widened with surprise, and a slow smile spread on his face. “I’d like that too. I’d like you to get everything you want. Right down to that last thing.”

An electric jolt ran across Violet’s skin, darting down her neck and up her arms. Two days ago, she’d thought she’d lost him forever. Now he was here, wrapped in the same blanket that she was, planning a life with her. Her eyes pricked with tears again, but this time the tears were sweet.

“What about you?” she asked. “What do you want?”

He tipped his head forward, and his damp hair dangled onto her forehead. His gaze was fixed on her collarbone with such warmth, it took her breath away.

“I want the things that you want,” he said. “Only I want one more.”

“What’s that?” she whispered.

“To kiss you.”

He slid his hand up her cheek and leaned close. She rose up on tiptoes and their lips met, softly. It was her first taste of a loving kiss, and it melted her veins. Her bones.

He followed that kiss with another, pulling her body close to his.

She ran her hand up his back, between his wet shirt and the blanket, up to his neck, to his wet hair. A small gasp escaped him, and her heart tumbled out of her chest. It tumbled and fell, headlong, into his.

–

Sometime in the early morning a gentle rain fell, and so, when Violet looked out their bedroom window in the morning, the grass glimmered with tiny stars. She checked on Sadie for the tenth time that morning, and this time her sister stirred and slowly opened one eye, then the other.

“How are you?” Violet adjusted the pillows under Sadie’s head, propping her up higher. Wracking coughs had plagued her for hours after her rescue, and raising her head seemed to help. “No more coughing?”

“I don’t think so,” Sadie said, “but my chest aches.” She caught Violet’s hand and said nothing for a long while. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry that you fell in,” Violet said carefully, “or that you went in on purpose?”

“I hardly even remember. Sorry for all of it. For the cards, for running off to get married without telling you. For the champagne glasses. For—” She hesitated, pressing on her sore ribs. “Is Charlie all right?”

“He’s more than all right.” The bubbly feeling of last night welled up all over again, threatening to send streamers out the top of her head. “We’re going to be married.”

“You are! Oh, Violet! I’m so happy for you!” Sadie flung her arms around Violet and squeezed tight. “Then he didn’t mind? About the money?”

“He didn’t mind. Not at all. But it turns out that it also doesn’t matter.” She reached for their bedside table and tucked the jade earrings into Sadie’s palm. “Alva chastised Reggie until he agreed to tear up your note and all the checks. He even gave these back. The necklace, too.”

Sadie’s eyes were round as coins as she stared at the earrings. “Good night. I swear, Violet, I will never gamble on cards again.” She closed her fist around the jade stones. “It’s really true? He really tore it up?”

“Charlie said Alva actually did the tearing, so I think we can trust that it truly happened.”

Sadie lunged at her for another embrace. When they separated, her eyes were full of tears. “You’ve been saying for years that Mother and Papa bounced from disaster to disaster.”

“I shouldn’t have put it like that,” Violet said. “They were trying their best. I didn’t need to be so judgmental.”

“No, you’re right. They did. And I can see now how it happens. The wrong friends, too much champagne, quick decisions, trying too hard to impress. I can see the same impulse in me. I understand them. To the bone, I really do. But now I see what a terrifying way that is to live. I don’t want that for myself. I’m ready to go back to Emma Willard in the fall, if we can still get me in. I don’t want to splash from mess to mess.” She caught Violet’s hands between her own. “I want to be more like you.”

“You’ll do better than that.” Violet sniffed, wishing for her handkerchief. “You’ll be the most stellar Sadie Van Waters that ever walked the earth. And that will be something great to behold.”

–

When Violet arrived at breakfast, Flora and the Worth siblings were bombarding Charlie with questions about the night before. She slipped into the empty seat beside him as he was explaining that he’d heard the splash when Sadie went in and so had a rough sense of where she was.

“But how could this happen? Weren’t there lamps down on the dock?” Flora asked.

“I couldn’t tell you. But it was certainly cold.”

Violet reached for his hand under the table. It might have been cold the night before, but it wasn’t now. His fingers caught hers as if they’d been waiting all morning for their arrival. A secretive smile played on his lips. The others were still talking about Sadie’s dramatic dunking, but Charlie seemed to not hear them.

“How are you?” His voice was so soft, only she could hear.

“Very happy. And you? Did you finally warm up?”

“Warm from the inside out,” he said. His gaze was on her lip, and Violet’s skin went soft with the memory of last night. “Although I did worry that I might have dreamt the end of the night. It’s a relief to have you here. Is Sadie well?”

“She coughed quite a bit and her lungs ache, but she’s going to be fine. Thanks to you.”

He shook his head but said nothing. Flora and the Worth sisters were watching them with curiosity. Glory, thought Violet, if they spent a million years guessing, they’d never imagine all of what she and Charlie had been through these past two weeks. The span of days might look short on the calendar, but she felt she’d traveled through several ages to reach this time and place.

“That last séance is this morning,” Charlie said. “Do you feel up for it? I’m sure Alva would let you off, considering.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m ready. Are you?”

He lifted her hand and kissed its back. “I am. I feel more at peace with my ghosts than I have in a long while.”

They lingered over tea and coffee, then lingered further over quiet conversation in the loggia. Plans were laid for a trip to Chicago with Alva, for meeting Charlie’s parents in Baltimore, for escorting Sadie to Emma Willard in the fall. Perhaps a September wedding. Guests moved about the halls, calling on servants to help them pack or remove their trunks, but Violet and Charlie hardly heard. A few minutes before ten, they returned to the Breakfast Room just as the staff was closing the drapes, the first to arrive.

They moved to the foot of the table and were about to take their seats when Sadie appeared at the doorway.

“Oh—it’s Sadie!” Violet broke away and went to her sister, who looked wan and weary, but otherwise well. Sadie was simply dressed in a cream-colored waist and black skirt. She had a hug for Violet, then she came around the table and embraced a startled Charlie.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you last night,” she whispered. “What you did took such courage. I’m ever so grateful.”

As she pulled away, Charlie reached for the back of his chair. “I’m just relieved that you’re all right.”

They sat, and Violet couldn’t stop smiling as she looked from one to the other. “This is all I could have hoped for,” she said. “Sadie on my left, and Charlie on my right. I can’t believe I’m expressing joy at the start of a séance, of all things, but there it is.”

On that note, the Vanderbilts filed in—Alva, Reggie, and Flora—followed by Mary Clemence and Greta Abernathy. Helena Voldore flowed in wearing a high-necked white blouse. She took her usual seat at the head and gazed along the table.

“Before we begin, I’d like to say what a pleasure it’s been to co-mingle psychic energy with all of you during this delightful stay here at the Breakers. I realized that the work of the séance can be exhausting. It requires intense focus on those we have lost, and that’s something most people would rather avoid. But without that concentrated effort, we cannot reach across to the other side, and cannot make a strong connection. And in my experience, it is in this process that great healing lies. So, with that said, I do commend you all. Let us begin.”

Everyone clasped hands as Mrs. Voldore encouraged them to hold their beloved departed in their mind’s eyes. Violet pulled in her breath and summoned a memory of her parents on a summer’s day, long ago, at Cold Lake. They’d rowed out in a dory together, Papa in his shirtsleeves, Mother under a parasol. Sunlight had turned the lake into a mirror. Even from the shore, Violet had heard her mother laughing.

“Fanny? Fanny, are you there? Dearest child, can you gather again those who perished aboard the Lusitania? Their family members would like to reach them.”
A moment elapsed, then, “Fanny tells me they feel distant today. Perhaps they’re beginning to settle into the other world. Ah. Here is one who wishes to speak. Violet Van Waters, do have any words for your mother?”

Although Violet had come prepared for this, it was still startling to hear Mrs. Voldore ask the question—as if her mother had just rung up by telephone. But a squeeze from Charlie’s hand helped settled her heart, and similar pressure from Sadie’s gave her encouragement.

“Yes. Yes, I have. Is Mother there?”

“Here and listening.”

“I’d like—” Her voice sounded wobbly, so she swallowed and tried again, more solidly. “Mother, I want you to know that your girls are going to be all right. I know you worried about us. You worried and wondered what our futures would be, and whether we’d follow in your footsteps or venture out on our own. No one’s life, of course, wholly mimics another’s, but even so I now feel safe in saying that Sadie and I are both on paths of our own choosing. We’re going to look out for one another, and we’re going to be just fine.”

Beside her, Sadie sniffled. Violet pressed her thumb against her sister’s and went on.

“I’ve read your letters to Aunt Sarah. I can see now that you were as mystified by me as I was by you. We both had strong ideas about how life should be lived, and I’m ashamed that I confused your way of living with you—your essence. If I had it all to do over again, I would have liked to get beyond the things we battled about. Because they were superficial, weren’t they? They were just about preferences—for parties, or study, or nice things, or quiet. Those are the bricks on the outside of the house. If I’d been wiser, I’d have opened the door to see who you were on the inside.”

She swallowed and continued.

“I know the deprivations of your childhood had a strong bearing on what you wanted for yourself, and for us. My childhood had different deprivations, and they’ve led me to prize different things. Like the love of a man who listens to me with thoughtful attention, who wants to be my partner in life. Mother, sitting beside me is Charlie Tremblay.”

She turned toward Charlie. From the connection of their hands, warmth flowed back and forth between them.

“He’s the most interesting, brave, and passionate man I’ve ever met.” Her mouth bent into a smile. “I’m going to marry him.”

She rose partway from her chair and leaned across the corner of the table to where Charlie sat. He should have been hard to find in the dark, but her mouth found his as if drawn by a silver threat. Scandalous as it was, she kissed him, in front of everyone.

And he kissed her back, in front of everyone.

As she stood, she spoke again.

“Mother, my heart aches for the years we won’t have together. For the chance I won’t have to come to understand you. Or to introduce Charlie. Or for you to see Sadie bloom and thrive. But rest assured that we will be well. We’ll stick together. And we’ll be all right.”

As she sank back into her seat, Violet looked first to Charlie, then to Sadie. She could barely make them out in the darkness, but it hardly mattered. She knew they were there.