The Pursuit
of Lucy Banning
By Olivia
Newport
Chapter
4
"Thank you."
With a smile, Lucy pressed a coin into the
hand of the cab driver as he helped her down. Daniel had put her in a carriage
to carry her safely home after their tea. The neighborhood was quiet as the
carriage pulled away and Lucy surveyed her surroundings. The Pullmans had
houseguests, Lucy knew, so she was not surprised to see a couple of extra
coachmen tending to carriages under the broad porch at the front door across
Eighteenth Street. The brownstone-covered massive home seemed as impenetrable
as the Pullman business
empire. Lucy had last been inside the Pullman home the previous spring for a
dinner party. She'd spent several hours in the opulent dining room and parlor
that evening, and more than one dinner guest had referred to the
two-hundred-seat theater and the two-lane private bowling alley of the home. Lucy had
managed to swallow her wonderings whether the Pullmans were
looking for a life in which they never had to leave their fortress. In
comparison, the Bannings lived simply, and perhaps even were the "poor
neighbors."
Certainly the Fields were not the poor
neighbors, nor the Kimballs, whose new home on the corner of Eighteenth and
Prairie had been completed only in recent months. Lucy had watched it go up
stage by stage, passing by it every day. The neighborhood rumor—no one knew for
sure—was that the owner of the Kimball Piano and Organ Company had a Steinway in
his parlor. A Kimball piano would have been a cheap insult to the Rembrandts
that hung on the walls. Across the street from the Kimballs, the Glessners were
the neighborhood rebels. They refused to erect a home that fit into the unspoken
code of European design, opting instead for granite stone architecture that
embraced a free American spirit. Inside, Mrs. Glessner flagrantly
defied the rules for decorating and welcomed the friendly atmosphere of the
Arts and Crafts movement with
its warm tones and practicality even in exquisite craftsmanship. Flora
Banning acquired select pieces from the Arts and Crafts movement, but Mrs.
Glessner embraced it full on.
Lucy turned to face the solid oak front
door of the Banning mansion two doors down from the Kimballs. With lips
together, she inhaled deeply, then opened her mouth and exhaled slowly. The
weight in her shoulders eased. She should never have let slip to Daniel that she
had met Will Edwards at the university. At least Daniel was not coming to dinner
tonight, nor would he be calling for her later. A business dinner would consume his evening.
The staff would undoubtedly
set a place for him just in case. Over the years they had grown used to Daniel's
presence in the Banning house
and seemed prepared for his needs regardless of when he turned up.
You can't stand on the sidewalk
forever, she told herself.
Her family may not have been the richest on the block, nor the most daring, nor
the most creative, but they were her family. Dinner would be served promptly at
eight o'clock, and Lucy could not appear in gray flannel. She picked up her
skirts and climbed the handful of steps that led to the front door and entered
the expansive foyer.
Penard, his wrists crossed behind his back, paced in
front of a stiff lineup of the household staff. The round dark mahogany pedestal
table, anchor of the foyer, separated butler from staff. Taking in the startling
scene before her, Lucy instinctively caught herself from letting the door
slam.
"As you know well," Penard was saying, "my
position as butler of this household makes me accountable for every item within its walls. Mr. Banning is
seriously distressed that some items have gone missing from his
private study. I have admonished each of you repeatedly not to enter that room
without specific permission from me, and I have extended no such permission to
any of you. You can understand my concern that some items of sentimental
value to Mr. Banning have
disappeared."
As if on ominous cue, the seven-foot grandfather clock
bonged six times.
Lucy skimmed the expressions of one
stricken servant's face after another. As much as she might like to, she could
not get involved. Running the household was Penard's purview. Her parents had
trusted him for fifteen years. Mrs. Fletcher, the cook, had been with the
family for years as well and
was above reproach. The other staff tended to rotate every year or two. Lucy so
far had found Archie Shepard, the footman and assistant coachman, to take his
responsibilities seriously, and Elsie, the ladies' maid she shared with her
mother, to be delightfully personable. Bessie, the parlor maid, said no more
than she had to but anticipated her tasks and the family's needs with
almost befuddling ac- curacy.
The kitchen maid, Kate, had left abruptly a couple of weeks earlier, but Lucy
assessed her to be simply high-strung, not the sort who had any point to prove
by stealing knickknacks. She wondered whom Penard could suspect among this
lot.
Lucy's eyes moved to the young woman at
the end of the lineup. She
must be the new kitchen maid,
she thought, and Penard is
going to scare her off before she even catches her breath. The woman, who was around Lucy's age,
stared at her feet during the
entire dressing-down. Holding her satchel closely, Lucy inched away from the
door and toward the marble
stairs across the foyer.
Penard pivoted and paced in the opposite direction. "I
need not remind any of you that you serve in this house at my pleasure. The
Bannings give me authority. If I do not recommend you, you do not work here.
It's that simple. For the moment, I will refrain from making specific
allegations, but be warned that I will be watching carefully. I will know
everything that happens in this house."
The new kitchen maid twitched, and her eyes rose
momentarily to Penard.
"Charlotte, do you have something you wish to say?"
Penard glared at the maid.
"No, sir." The maid's eyes went back to her
feet.
"If I discover that you are withholding anything from me,
you have my assurance you will regret it."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Penard."
Lucy flinched on the girl's behalf.
Clearly she was unnerved. Was
it really necessary for Penard to speak to her this way on her first afternoon
of employment?
Still, Lucy knew she ought to go upstairs
to choose a gown for dinner
and let Penard sort out whatever was amiss. Her foot was on the first marble
step when her father burst into the foyer.
"Well, Penard, what have you discerned?"
Samuel Banning boomed.
Lucy cringed. She knew that intonation
well: her father had given up
even trying to be polite. Involuntarily, she turned to see how Penard would
respond.
"I have taken appropriate action, Mr. Banning," Penard
said. "I'm sure we have put an end to things."
Samuel Banning pointed at Charlotte, the new maid. "Who
is this? I don't recognize her."
"This is Miss Charlotte Farrow," Penard
responded evenly. "We have engaged her services as a kitchen maid. She has just
arrived to take up her
post."
"Was she here yesterday?" Samuel snapped.
"Only briefly, sir, for an interview."
"Why didn't I meet her?"
"You had not yet come home from the
Calumet Club, sir. After I
interviewed her and recommended her, Mrs. Banning gave her
approval."
"If she was here yesterday, she could have
done it," Samuel said. "I
want to see her bags."
By now Charlotte was visibly quaking, and Lucy could no
longer resist the urge to intervene. "Father, please. I've only just got home,
so I'm not sure what is causing such a stir, but I'm certain we can sort it out
calmly."
"You wouldn't say that if it were your items going
missing. My brass paperweight is gone."
"The one shaped like a gavel?"
"Yes. It's the only brass paperweight I have."
"It's not the first time you thought something was
missing, Father," Lucy reminded him. "Remember last spring when you were sure
Richard took a book from your library of first editions? You were quite
distressed, as I recall. But it turned out you loaned it to Daniel's father. You
didn't even recall you'd given it to him until he returned it a few weeks
later."
"This is not the same at all," Samuel said. But the wind
had gone out of him.
Lucy glanced at Charlotte, who was so pale Lucy thought
she might faint.
"Father, let the staff go back to work." She spoke
quietly. "I'm sure if we put our minds to it, we can figure out what
happened."
"That's what your mother says." Samuel
raised rather than lowered his voice. "But if one of her precious pots went
missing, she'd sing a
different tune."
"I would sing exactly the same tune."
Flora Banning appeared in the
broad arch that led from the parlor to the foyer. "Penard has a spotless record hiring
staff, as you well know. No one he has brought into our employ has ever given
you cause to think twice."
"Things change. This new girl—"
"She's only been here a few hours, Samuel."
"But yesterday—"
"She was in the parlor for all of ten
minutes and then left directly by the servants' entrance. She
was nowhere near your study."
Lucy glanced at the maid, who seemed visibly
relieved.
Flora turned to Penard. "You may dismiss
the staff, Penard. I'm sure
they all have better things to do."
Penard nodded his head almost
imperceptibly, and the staff dispersed.
"Samuel, for goodness' sake," Flora said, "it's a
paperweight. It's nothing of value."
"That's hardly the point,
Flora."
"I'm sure you've just misplaced it. You're not in court.
There's no need to put anyone on trial. Stop acting like a foolish old man."
Flora's eyes brightened as she looked at her daughter. "Lucy, dear, you're
home."
Lucy stepped over to kiss her mother's cheek, one hand
behind her back with the satchel.
"Have you been with Daniel in that outfit?" Flora
asked.
Lucy sighed. "Yes, Mother. I had no time to come home and
change. It's a perfectly good suit."
"It's drab and off the rack. It's a good thing Daniel is
as fond of you as he is. I'm surprised he allows you to dress the way you do
sometimes."
Lucy's eyes flared but she held her tone. "It's hardly
Daniel's decision how I dress for an afternoon at the orphanage, is
it?"
"You're going to be his wife soon. Your appearance will
reflect on him."
"I promise I'm not going to get married in a gray flannel
suit."
"Goodness, I should hope not," Flora said.
"Have the two of you settled
on a date?"
Lucy let her gaze drift away casually. "Daniel suggested
mid-July."
"In the middle of the summer heat! Oh, I don't know,
Lucy."
Lucy shrugged. "It's just a suggestion. We
haven't decided anything."
"Perhaps I'll have a word with his mother. We don't want
to let it become an urgent question."
Lucy smiled. Daniel was of course correct
that the mothers would have
strong opinions. "The only urgent question I'm facing is what to wear for dinner
tonight." She looked from one parent to the other, then took her sulking
father's elbow and turned him around. "Why don't the two of you relax in the
parlor? Perhaps Mrs. Fletcher can have Bessie bring you some
refreshment."
"I'll call for her," Flora said, taking her husband's
other arm.
"I had hoped Aunt Violet would be here," Lucy said. "It's
Thursday."
"She telephoned this afternoon to say she is otherwise
engaged," her mother explained.
"Then I hope she's enjoying herself."
Lucy's words masked her disappointment. Aunt Violet, where are you when I need
you?
By the time Lucy left her parents in the
parlor, Flora was talking about the redecorating that should be done before
the wedding. As she turned
back toward the stairs, across the foyer Lucy saw movement in the dining
room. She paused long enough to see it was the new maid beginning to lay the
table for dinner. The girl
looked up just long enough to catch Lucy's eye before busying herself with the
china.
Something's wrong, Lucy thought, but not what Father thinks.
Bio: Olivia Newport's novels twist through time to
discover where faith and passions meet. Her husband and two twenty-something
children provide welcome distraction from the people stomping through her head
on their way into her books. She chases joy in stunning Colorado at the foot of
the Rockies, where daylilies grow as tall as she is.
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