Time After Time by Antoinette Stockenberg Page B

was all so predictable.
A senile woman with no family and a fair amount of money, along
comes a charming ne'er do-well, and the rest is history. How
brutally ironic, Liz thought as she walked her daughter upstairs to
her room: the con-woman got conned, and she paid with her
life.
    After she put Susy to bed,
Liz washed up with every intention of turning in at seven-thirty
herself; she was desperately behind in her sleep. She washed Susy's
milk glass and her own tea things and began heading up the stairs,
then made the mistake of glancing at the pine seaman's trunk that
served as her coffee table, where the letters were stacked like
full-color slides of another age.
    Just one, she told herself. And
then I've got to get some sleep.
    After turning off the
ringer to her phone, she settled into the down-filled cushions of
her chintz sofa and picked up a letter at random. It was dated in
July 1890; she read through it quickly, looking for — she didn't
know what. For answers. For clues. For something to explain the red
box and the chimes and the ghost and Victoria's bizarre
behavior.
     
    My dear sister,
    I am out of sorts today
with what I fear is the grippe. In any case, I am too weak and
trembly to take part in the endless round of boredom that has
become known as the Bellevue Avenue coaching parade.
    You left Newport too soon,
my sweet. Yesterday there was a great to-do when Mrs.
Olivia-Pemberton had her coachman cut directly in front of Mrs.
Vanderbilt ‘s maroon barouche-and-six. (I was approaching from the
opposite direction in Peter Trumble‘s phaeton and saw it all. It
truly did happen.)
    Mrs. V. will never, of
course, forgive the impertinence. My advice to Mrs.
Olivia-Pemberton is to cease construction on her Versailles folly,
pack up her bags, and return at once to New York. She is quite
through in Newport. Perhaps Bar Harbor will take her.
     
    "Tough town," Liz said,
smiling, as she laid the letter back on its pile. It was
interesting to learn that Mercy had managed to visit Newport after
all. Liz would have to read back from the letter to find out what
scams she‘d been
up to. It was like a historical soap opera.
    She picked up another
letter — absolutely, positively her last of the night. It was dated
in late June of the following year.
     
    Dear Mercy,
    I have made inquiries
about the mystery man who so enchanted you at the Black and White
Ball. Only one man there dared dress all in black, without even a
shred of white. He is, alas, a younger brother with only modest
prospects.
    Even less encouraging, he
is known to be a wild thing, taking up society's best women and
then breaking their hearts. He is an artist by vocation, if not by
trade. I understand that his parents, despite their disappointment,
dote on him to the extent that they have allowed him to build a
small studio on the grounds of their estate.
    In any case, I hardly see
how he will ever have enough money or ambition to suit you. His
older brother, who manages the family empire in New York and on
this island, would be much more worthy a catch for you — but he is
engaged to be married. It will surely be one of the most
extravagant nuptials ever to be celebrated here; I am desperate to
receive an invitation.
    Write me as soon as you
arrive at Biarritz. I assume you stay at the Palace until you are
taken up somewhere.
     
    By now, Liz had made up
her mind that little Mercy was a gold-digging masseuse; she saw
nothing in the letter to dissuade her. And yet this particular
letter, of all the ones she'd read, held Liz fast. She read it
through again, disappointed that Victoria hadn't named the brothers
in question. What good was a mystery man if he stayed a mystery? He
was an artist; too bad. Newport society didn't take kindly to
Bohemians — look what a hard slog it had been so far for Victoria
and Mercy. On the other hand, the two sisters were still in the
game, so who knows? Mrs. Astor's rule that you had to be rich for
three full generations before