“Tonight, if you like,” said Joshua, “you can sleep in Mrs. Frick’s bedroom, although I’m not sure how comfortable a fifty-year-old mattress will be.”
“It’ll be better than this sofa, for certain. Especially if I pile on the blankets. What about you?”
He looked at the couch. “I’ll crash here. But let me light your way up there before I do.”
Up in Mrs. Frick’s bedroom, he pointed at her suitcases. “Good thing you have your toothbrush with you.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have a spare. But if you need a waist cinch or a coral lipstick, do let me know.”
“I sure will.”
Outside, the wind howled. The storm was only getting worse. Joshua setting up camp a floor below her didn’t appeal at all, not after they’d tramped around together for the past however many hours. “Hey, you can crash on that chaise longue, if you want.” She tossed out the suggestion lightly, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal, either way. “No need to go all the way downstairs.”
“You scared?” He shot her a mischievous grin.
“No. Yes. This house is eerie. I mean, people died in it, right?”
“Mr. Frick certainly did, but not in this room, if that helps. Anyway, that’s just the way things were done, back then.”
“Still. I’d prefer not to be alone, to be perfectly honest.”
“Then I’ll keep guard.” He went to the chaise and took off his shoes. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched as he undid the double knots on the black leather lace-ups, first one, then the other, and gently eased them off, placing them neatly side by side. He valued those shoes, she could tell, as she had valued her silk high heels. The thought of him shining his shoes before coming to work each day made her heart skip, for some odd reason.
She settled on the bed and distracted herself from its slightly musty odor by studying the painted ceiling, which was decorated with florals and swirls. “Earlier today you mentioned that there was another Frick daughter, besides Helen. What happened to her?”
“Martha?”
“Right, Martha.”
“Are you sure you want to know? It might give you bad dreams.”
She said she’d be fine, and he went on to explain, with a gentleness that she appreciated in that cold, dark room, about a swallowed pin, years of pain and misdiagnoses, and the girl’s lingering death. It made Veronica unbearably sad for the poor child, as well as for the family who witnessed her suffering. Mr. Frick suddenly loomed less like a capitalist monster and more like a flawed human being. “How did you find this out?”
“From reading the Fricks’ letters,” said Joshua. “They didn’t realize what was wrong with her until it was too late. The child was too little to communicate.”
“My sister can’t communicate.”
Veronica had no idea why she’d just said that. Lying in the dark with Joshua, where neither of them could really make out each other’s faces, felt safe, like she was back in the room she’d shared with Polly in Notting Hill. They’d pasted glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and every night Polly would laugh in amazement as they emerged after the lights were out. “Something happened when she was born and she’s never been able to talk. My mum and I can understand what she’s saying, but no one else does.”
“Like a secret language?”
“I know what she wants by her sounds. And her laugh. She has a wicked sense of humor, and gets the joke. She always, always gets the joke. When our mum came home from shopping one day and didn’t know she’d left a lone pink foam roller hanging off the back of her head, Polly practically fell off her chair. As did I, we were laughing so hard.”
“I’ve always wished I had a brother or sister, to be able to share inside jokes like that,” said Joshua. “Is Polly older or younger than you?”
“We’re twins.” They were silent for a moment, but it was an encouraging type of silence, like he was giving her room to formulate her thoughts, decide what to share. “Polly doesn’t make eye contact, but she sees everything that’s going on. Unfortunately, most people avoid her completely. She scares them. She lived with us until a few months ago, when my mum insisted that she move to a home so we both could work. I hate to think of her there, surrounded by people who don’t understand her.”
“What about your dad?”
“He used to drive the night shift, as a cabbie, and one morning I came out and found him asleep in his cab, which wasn’t unusual. He hated to come in late and wake us all up. But he wasn’t asleep. He’d had a heart attack.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s a terrible thing to have to go through.”
She pushed the image of him sitting behind the wheel, chin to chest, out of her mind. “I suppose the good news is I’ll be seeing Polly sooner than expected.”
“Why is that?”
“The photo shoot was supposed to last a week. The next stop was the Breakers, in Newport, but I made a mess of things.”
“How do you mean?”
“The photographer was yelling at one of the girls, being really rude. I told him to stop.”
“Sounds heroic.”
“Certainly, the other models didn’t seem to think so. Then they all left without me. Probably thought that I’d quit and walked out. I should’ve.”
“Then we wouldn’t have found the clues or the secret compartments.”
“That was kind of fun.”
“I agree.”
“I suppose that’s your job, really,” she said. “Nosing about. Discovering lost secrets.”
They lay in silence for a moment. Veronica thought that Joshua might have fallen asleep, but then he spoke again. “Maybe Polly will enjoy it once she’s settled in.”
She sat up on one elbow. Her eyes had gotten used to the dark, and she could just make out his features. “How could you say that? She’s miserable.”
“So was my grandmother when she had to move into a nursing home. She was falling, it was dangerous, and my father hated to do it. But now she’s happy as can be, made lots of friends. I swear, her social calendar is so full she’s too busy to see us.”
“My mother said the same thing, and she’s wrong. You’re wrong. This isn’t like that.”
“Okay, sorry.”
She heard him settle back down. She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but he had no idea what her family situation was like. Polly shouldn’t be in an institution—Veronica was certain of that.
And now she had the means to change everything sitting right there in her pocket. A thin river of hope had spread through her ever since she’d first held the diamond up to the light. It’d been missing for so long, no one was actively looking for it anymore; no one would miss it. Mr. Frick probably would have done the same, she told herself, stealing whatever he could get his hands on to crawl his way up in the world. Much better that the diamond go to someone who needed it rather than an institution that already dripped with riches.
She felt bad for her knee-jerk reaction, though. “How old are you, Joshua?” she asked.
“Twenty-one.” he said. “How about you?”
“Eighteen. Have you always known what you wanted to do, career-wise?” Something about the dark and the quiet made her unafraid to pry. His life was so different from her own, in a myriad of ways.
“My parents took me to museums and galleries ever since I was a kid. But I don’t think working in a place like this is in my future. I have other ideas.”
“Like what?”
“My dream would be to mount a show of art brut.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s French for ‘rough art’ or ‘raw art.’ It refers to artists without formal training, who aren’t part of the mainstream art world, like Joshua Johnson. Or Bill Traylor, who was born into slavery and died in the late forties. I bet if I go to the South and travel around, I’ll find even more artists who are undiscovered.”
“That sounds incredible. Maybe I’ll come with you.”
As soon as she said the words, she regretted them. First, because they assumed an intimacy that she didn’t mean to imply. And second, because even though she wasn’t from the States, she knew a Black man and a white woman wouldn’t get far in the South before running into trouble.