The Pursuit of Lucy Banning (8 page)

“Do I get a vote in these arrangements?” Will asked.

Leo grinned and raised an eyebrow.

Will turned to Lucy. “Miss Banning, my friend has asked me to escort his sister and it would be my pleasure to do so. May I see you at seven on Monday evening? We will of course enjoy the company of your aunt.”

“Good, then it’s all arranged,” Leo said. “I’ll talk to Violet myself. Come on, Will, we have to get moving. The lake can get choppy in the afternoons this time of year.” He tipped his hat to Lucy. “We’re off to the new Columbia Yacht Club. I’m trying to persuade Father to join.”

And before she could protest further, Lucy was once again alone. With a sigh of surrender, she returned to the study and pulled her book off the shelf to resume her study. As she turned the pages to find her place again, Will’s features mingled in her view of every painting.

Will Edwards was simply her brother’s friend. Leo had brought many young men home with him over the years, and none of them had ever made Lucy think twice about Daniel Jules. She had known she would marry Daniel as surely as spring gives way to summer. Her future with Daniel Jules was not imperiled because of Will Edwards. Lucy was certain of that. After all, she had met Will only three days ago, and she had been testing her feelings for Daniel for weeks.

Lucy’s realization of how she felt about Daniel was indistinct. She didn’t have a list of reasons not to marry him. She harbored no ill will toward him and in fact held cherished memories. Clearly he would be a successful banker and offered her a comfortable life. In time she was sure she could broker an agreement that allowed her some involvement with the orphanage. All she had to do was make it seem advantageous to Daniel, which she was confident she could do. Their families would continue flowing in and out of each other’s lives.

Still, it would not work.

Lucy sighed again, this time in fatigue. The words and pictures in the book were not sinking in. Maybe a short but brisk walk would help. Lucy reached for the miniature tin hammered box where her father kept his business cards. She wanted one for a bookmark. He fastidiously had kept the box on the same corner of his desk for at least ten years.

But the box was not there. Not on the desk. Not on the credenza. Not on a bookshelf. Not in a drawer. Lucy was sure she had seen it on Thursday.

Was it possible Samuel Banning was not as forgetful as the family chided him for being? Or perhaps far more forgetful than any of them imagined?

Lucy put the book back on the shelf without a bookmark, picked up her textbook, walked down the hall to the foyer, and started up the steps for a cape to wear outside.

That’s when she heard it. It stopped almost as soon as it started, a soft mewing, faint but earnest. Lucy froze on the stairs and cocked her head to listen. Nothing. Richard had been nagging to get a kitten, and Lucy wouldn’t put it past him to sneak one into the house. Her skirts swished as she began to move again.

There it was. She stilled her skirts and held her breath.

And it came again.

It was no kitten. With countless hours at the orphanage, Lucy knew the cry of a newborn when she heard it. Deftly she moved through the dining room toward the sound, and once again it suddenly silenced.

By now she was sure the sound had come from the kitchen, beyond the butler’s pantry that linked the dining room and kitchen. The staff was supposed to be out. No one should be in the kitchen. As a child, Lucy had not been allowed in the kitchen. Once, when she was eight and wandered into the butler’s pantry out of curiosity about the smells wafting into the dining room, Penard had pounced on her, turned her around, and marched her out. Her mother sternly admonished her to stay out of the kitchen. Lucy hadn’t been through those doors in years. In reality, she still was not allowed in there.

But that sound!

She would only know for sure if she did the unthinkable.

 9 

L
ucy stood at the door to the butler’s pantry, one hand clutching her textbook and the other tentatively raised to push the door open. She stood perfectly still, lest the rustle of her skirts mask the slightest noise from within those mysterious walls. But the sound had stopped and several minutes passed—long enough for her to think perhaps it was nothing after all. Lucy shifted the book, using both arms now to press it against her chest as she held her breath. No baby’s cry reached her ears, but the more she listened, the more Lucy believed someone was in the kitchen. Mrs. Fletcher would make no effort to silence ordinary sounds, nor would Penard or Archie or Bessie or Elsie.

Charlotte.

The new maid was the unknown factor.

Muffled shuffling made Lucy lean into the door with one shoulder. Quickly she crossed the pantry and ducked through the shorter, broader door to the kitchen. She peered in—and gasped.

“Charlotte!” Lucy couldn’t believe what she saw.

Charlotte sucked in her breath and clutched her bundle closer. She sprang out of her chair at the table where the servants ate. “Miss Lucy! Please, miss, I can explain—”

“You have a baby!” Disbelief and intrigue fused in Lucy’s hushed voice. She moved toward the quilt in Charlotte’s arms. The baby cooed.

Charlotte exhaled and offered no further resistance. Lucy saw the tear eking its way out of Charlotte’s left eye. Charlotte could have been any number of young women who appeared at the orphanage, stricken, bereft of any option but to place their children in care because men had run off or died or never been husbands in the first place. Every week, Lucy saw them arrive, terrified and agonized at having reached their last option. She took their names and whatever false address or employment information they might leave and opened files on their offspring. The children might be newborns or toddlers or nearly ready for school.

The art book slithered out of Lucy’s hands to the table as she reached out to fold back a quilt corner. “He’s so young!” she marveled. The baby’s startled blue eyes stared at her out of a serious plump face topped with brown feathery fuzz. “But how are you possibly managing a baby? Penard would never have taken you on if he knew.”

“I know, miss. I didn’t tell him. I couldn’t. And Henry is so little trouble.”

“Where have you kept him?”

“In a carpetbag in my closet.”

“Charlotte, you must know you can’t possibly keep him here.”

“Yes, miss.” Charlotte swallowed hard. “I had to start working before I can board him.”

“You have no money?”

Charlotte shook her head.

“Have you arranged a place to board him?” Lucy probed.

“No, miss. I can hardly bring myself to think of it.” Charlotte leaned forward and kissed the top of Henry’s head.

“What about his father?”

Charlotte merely shook her head more vigorously. Rather than dissolving in tears, she composed herself and straightened her posture. “Henry and I are on our own.”

“He can’t be more than six weeks old.”

“Three weeks and two days. He came early, but he’s growing every day.”

What an impossible situation
, Lucy thought. Obviously Charlotte could not keep a baby in the household. Whatever situation made her abandon her previous home with a newborn and no job must have been dire. Under what circumstances could hiding a baby be the better option? Lucy had witnessed the wrenching hearts as mothers left their children at St. Andrew’s. Many of them intended to visit regularly. Employment obligations, distance, lack of transportation, living on a pittance—these added up to notes meant to substitute temporarily for visits, and gradually lengthy lapses between notes, and finally the realization that children who did have a parent would nevertheless grow up in St. Andrew’s along with children who did not. Lucy understood Charlotte’s reluctance to leave her baby in the care of another woman, yet keeping him at the Banning house would never work. He would get older and bigger and louder and need more attention than a working maid could give. Neither Penard nor Mrs. Fletcher would stand for it, not to mention Samuel and Flora.

It simply wasn’t done on Prairie Avenue.

“Charlotte, you look like you haven’t slept,” Lucy said softly.

“Four nights now, miss,” Charlotte confessed. “Henry sleeps all day as long as I can sneak up and feed him, but he wants his mama at night.”

“Of course he does.” With gentle pressure on the maid’s arm, Lucy guided her to sit with her at the table. The unpadded straight-back chairs felt narrow and unfamiliar. Lucy couldn’t help but glance around the kitchen, soaking in details of food preparation mystery. Pots hung on hooks from the ceiling, and bins held flour, sugar, and potatoes. Knives on a butcher block awaited the next meal. Open shelves held the dishes she supposed the servants ate off, and a wide modern stove gleamed.

“I wanted some hot water to give him a bath,” Charlotte explained. “I would not have brought him down with me if I had known you were home. I’m so sorry I disturbed you, miss.”

“That’s not important, Charlotte. The question is what are you going to do with Henry?”

Charlotte raised her eyes and fixed them on Lucy’s face for the first time. “Are you going to tell Mr. Penard? Or your parents?”

Charlotte had every reason to ask, Lucy knew. One word from her and Charlotte would be out on the street without even the wages she had earned in the last two days. Penard never would have entertained hiring a maid with a baby, and Flora Banning never would have given approval. No one in the household was attached enough to the new maid to argue she should be kept on after such deception. A maid in Charlotte’s position was up early, before the family, and worked long hours until well after dark. She might have a couple of hours in the afternoon when she could get off her feet and put her hands to work on mending or other needlework for the family. Her job was to take care of the family’s needs, not look after a child who would grow in mobility, appetite, and demands.

“If it’s all the same to you, miss,” Charlotte said, “I’ll just duck upstairs for my things. I can be gone before anyone else comes home.” She stood and turned toward the stairs.

Lucy put a hand on Charlotte’s arm. “No, please don’t do that.”

“But, Miss Lucy—”

“We’ll figure something out.” Lucy pressed her grip more firmly. “I’d like to help you.”

Charlotte’s gaze drifted around the kitchen, uncertain.

“Charlotte, please, let me help. I have connections. I can make some telephone calls. Perhaps you don’t know of my volunteer work at St. Andrew’s Orphanage.”

“Henry is not an orphan!” A sob stole breath in Charlotte’s protest.

“No, of course not,” Lucy was quick to reassure. “He has you. Many of the children at St. Andrew’s have one parent.”

“I can’t put him in a place like that. I won’t.”

“The children there are well cared for, I assure you.” Lucy began to feel defensive. It wasn’t as if Charlotte had other viable options. “They are fed, they sleep in warm beds, and they go to school. You can visit whenever you like.”

“But it’s such a big place, Miss Lucy, and so many children. How can they look after my little Henry?”

It was a good point, and Lucy didn’t have to be a mother to understand. “Sometimes the director is able to place babies in homes with women who care for them,” Lucy explained. “I don’t know if any of these women are available right now, but please let me try.”

“How will he eat?” Charlotte asked.

“A wet nurse,” Lucy answered, “or Nestle infant formula, which would not cost you anything.”

“Will I be able to see him on my afternoons off?”

“Any time you want. You can even take him on outings, if you like.”

“They won’t try to adopt him out?”

“Not if you don’t want them to.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together, then said, “You would really do this for me? Without saying anything?”

“Yes, Charlotte, I will—if you’ll let me.”

“When?”

“It might take a few days to arrange,” Lucy admitted. “You could leave him at St. Andrew’s until—”

“No! I don’t want to take him there. It’s bad enough to give him to another woman.”

“Very well.” Lucy backed off. “But it will still take a few days, and you’re both at risk in the meantime. Are you sure you want to take that chance?”

Charlotte stroked her son’s cheek. “I have to.”

“I can’t talk to the orphanage director until Monday,” Lucy explained, “and then we’ll have to wait to see what he can arrange. The fair dedication is on Friday, and I know things are going to be bustling around here getting ready for that. I can’t make any promises about how quickly this can be done if you’re not willing to leave him at St. Andrew’s.”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. I’d rather take my chances with Mr. Penard.”

“Very well, then. One step at a time. I promise I will not say a word to anyone.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Charlotte whispered, her eyes lowered.

Lucy held out her arms. “Let me hold your baby. That will be thanks enough.”

Smiling with pride, Charlotte laid her son in Lucy’s arms. He blinked his eyes twice, then closed them, seeming to settle in securely.

“He trusts you,” Charlotte said.

“I hope to live up to his trust and yours,” Lucy answered.

Charlotte’s gaze settled on the forgotten art textbook on the table. “That book must weigh more than Henry,” she said. “It looks like a fancy schoolbook.”

Lucy glanced at the book, then back at Charlotte. “I have a secret of my own,” she confessed. “It
is
a schoolbook. I’m enrolled in an art history course at the University of Chicago.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “And Mr. and Mrs. Banning don’t know? Is that the secret?”

Lucy shook her head. “Only my Aunt Violet knows. Everyone else thinks I’m at the orphanage more than I am.”

“But Mr. Daniel—”

“He would not understand.”

“Your secret is safe with me, Miss Lucy. No one will hear any different. Are you going to earn a college degree like your brothers?”

Lucy shrugged. “One step at a time, just like you.”

Charlotte smiled, looking at Lucy full on. “What a pair we are.”

Lucy looked around the room once again. “If I’m caught in here, I’ll be in as much hot water as you are. We should both be on our ways.”

Charlotte laughed. “I’m not allowed in some rooms of the house, either.”

Lucy was relieved the young woman could manage a laugh in her dilemma. Charlotte was only slightly younger than she was. Only the circumstances of birth separated them. How easily she could have been the troubled maid and Charlotte the privileged daughter.

“Have you had enough to eat? You would know better than I what’s available, but please take something with you. Some cheese and meat, perhaps?”

“Yes, Miss Lucy.” Charlotte took a napkin from a basket, opened it, and laid two biscuits and a chunk of cheese in it before knotting it securely.

“You’d better get Henry upstairs.” Lucy handed the child back to his mother.

Lucy picked up her book. She still had plenty of time ahead of her to read and study. After opening the door that would take her back through the butler’s pantry to her own world, she turned to watch as Charlotte moved toward the narrow stairs that led to hers.

“I promise, Charlotte,” Lucy said, “I will figure something out and find a way to speak to you.”

“Yes, Miss Lucy.” Charlotte disappeared up the stairs.

Lucy reentered the dining room, crossed through the foyer, climbed the marble steps, and glided down the hall to her suite. Once again she was alone with her book and her secret, but this time keenly aware that another young woman was in a room above her with another secret. Her misgivings about Daniel and her clandestine class attendance seemed so much less risky than what Charlotte faced. Her life would have awkward moments but would not change drastically if her covert activities were discovered. Charlotte, however, had everything to lose—even her son.