Once and Always (Sequels 1)

When the butler left, Charles picked up the bottle of champagne, opened it, and poured some into a glass. With a determined smile, he lifted his glass in a solitary toast: “To your forthcoming marriage, Jason.”

“I’ll just be a few minutes, Mr. Borowski,” Victoria said, jumping down from the farmer’s wagon that was loaded with Dorothy’s and her belongings.

“Take yer time,” he said, puffing on his pipe and smiling. “Me an‘ yer sister won’t leave without you.”

“Do hurry, Tory,” Dorothy pleaded. “The ship won’t wait for us.”

“We got plenty o‘ time,” Mr. Borowski told her. “I’ll get you to the city and yer ship afore nightfall, and that’s a promise.”

Victoria hurried up the steps of Andrew’s imposing house, which overlooked the village from a hilltop, and knocked on the heavy oaken door. “Good morning, Mrs. Tilden,” she said to the plump housekeeper. “May I see Mrs. Bainbridge for a moment? I want to tell her good-bye and give her a letter to send on to Andrew, so he’ll know where to write to me in England.”

“I’ll tell her you’re here, Victoria,” the kindly housekeeper replied with an unencouraging expression, “but I doubt she’ll see you. You know how she is when she’s having one of her sick spells.”

Victoria nodded sagely. She knew all about Mrs. Bainbridge’s “sick spells.” According to Victoria’s father, Andrew’s mother was a chronic complainer who invented ailments to avoid doing anything she didn’t wish to do, and to manipulate and control Andrew. Patrick Seaton had told Mrs. Bainbridge that to her face several years ago, in front of Victoria, and the woman had never forgiven either of them for it.

Victoria knew that Mrs. Bainbridge was a fraud, and so did Andrew. For that reason, her palpitations, dizzy spells, and tingling limbs had little effect on either of them—a fact that, Victoria knew, further antagonized her against her son’s choice of a wife.

The housekeeper returned with a grim look on her face. “I’m sorry, Victoria, Mrs. Bainbridge says she isn’t well enough to see you. I’ll take your letter to Mr. Andrew and give it to her to send on to him. She wants me to summon Dr. Morrison,” she added in tones of disgust. “She says she has a ringing in her ears.”

“Dr. Morrison sympathizes with her ailments, instead of telling her to get out of bed and do something useful with her life,” Victoria summarized with a resigned smile, handing over the letter. She wished it wasn’t so costly to send mail to Europe, so she could post her letters herself, instead of having Mrs. Bainbridge include them in her own letters to Andrew. “I think Mrs. Bainbridge likes Dr. Morrison’s attitude better than she liked my father’s.”

“If you ask me,” Mrs. Tilden said huffily, “she liked your papa a sight too much. It was almost more than a body could stand, watchin‘ her dress herself up before she sent for him in the middle of the night and—not,” she broke off and corrected herself quickly, “that your papa, dear man that he was, ever played along with her scheme.”

When Victoria left, Mrs. Tilden brought the letter upstairs. “Mrs. Bainbridge,” she said, approaching the widow’s bed, “here is Victoria’s letter for Mr. Andrew.” “Give it to me,” Mrs. Bainbridge snapped in a surprisingly strong voice for an invalid, “and then send for Dr. Morrison at once. I feel quite dizzy. When is the new doctor supposed to arrive?”

“Within a week,” Mrs. Tilden replied, handing the letter to her.

When she left, Mrs. Bainbridge patted her gray hair into place beneath her lace cap and glanced with a grimace of distaste at the letter lying beside her on the satin coverlet. “Andrew won’t marry that country mouse,” she said contemptuously to her maid. “She’s nothing! He’s written me twice that his cousin Madeline in Switzerland is a lovely girl. I’ve told Victoria that, but the foolish baggage won’t pay it any heed.”

“Do you think he’ll bring Miss Madeline home as his wife, then?” her maid asked, helping to plump the pillows behind Mrs. Bainbridge’s back.

Mrs. Bainbridge’s thin face pinched with anger. “Don’t be a fool! Andrew has no time for a wife. I’ve told him that. This place is more than enough to keep him busy, and his duty is to it, and to me.” She picked up Victoria’s letter with two fingers as if it were contaminated and passed it to her maid. “You know what to do with this,” she said coldly.

“I didn’t know there were this many people, or this much noise, in the entire world,” Dorothy burst out as she stood on a dock in New York’s bustling harbor.

Stevedores with trunks slung on their shoulders swarmed up and down the gangplanks of dozens of ships; winches creaked overhead as heavily loaded cargo nets were lifted off the wooden pier and carried over the sides of the vessels. Shouted orders from ships’ officers blended with bursts of raucous laughter from sailors and lewd invitations called out by garishly garbed ladies waiting on the docks for disembarking seamen.

“It’s exciting,” Victoria said, watching the two trunks that held all their worldly possessions being carried on board the Gull by a pair of burly stevedores.

Dorothy nodded agreement, but her face clouded. “It is, but I keep remembering that at the end of our voyage, we’ll be separated, and it is all our great-grandmother’s fault. What can she be thinking of to refuse you her home?”

“I don’t know, but you mustn’t dwell on it,” Victoria said with an encouraging smile. “Think only of nice things. Look at the East River. Close your eyes and smell the salty air.”

Dorothy closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, but she wrinkled her nose. “All I smell is dead fish. Tory, if our great-grandmother knew more about you, I know she would want you to come to her. She can’t be so cruel and unfeeling as to keep us apart. I shall tell her all about you and make her change her mind.”

“You mustn’t say or do anything to alienate her,” Victoria warned gently. “For the time being, you and I are entirely dependent upon our relatives.”

“I won’t alienate her if I can help it,” Dorothy promised, “but I shall make it ever so clear, in tiny ways, that she ought to send for you at once.” Victoria smiled but remained silent, and after a moment, Dorothy sighed. “There is one small consolation in being hauled off to England—Mr. Wilheim said that, with more practice and hard work, I might be able to become a concert pianist. He said that in London there will be excellent instructors to teach and guide me. I shall ask, no, insist, that our great-grandmother permit me to pursue a musical career,” Dorothy finished, displaying the determined streak that few people suspected existed behind her sweet, complaisant facade.