Mrs. Frick had hidden away on the second floor, leaving Miss Helen and Lillian to manage the details. Or, to be honest, Lillian to do so, as Miss Helen tended to burst into tears every ten minutes or so and run out of her sitting room. Lillian raced through the to-do list she’d drafted up soon after Mr. Frick took a turn for the worse a couple of weeks ago. An artist was brought in to make deathbed studies; then the body was sent off to the funeral home. In the afternoon, the undertaker would deliver the coffin with Mr. Frick’s remains, which would be taken to the art gallery and covered in roses, lilies of the valley, and tulips. At precisely five thirty, the guests would gather in the living hall, where they would listen to a reading of the Sermon on the Mount before being invited to partake in the viewing, during which time Mr. Graham would play the organ. The invitations had been sent out first thing, and Mr. Danforth’s butler had returned word that his employer was out of town but sent his condolences. Lillian wasn’t sure if Mr. Danforth was lying about his whereabouts, but was relieved to strike him off the list.
The entire family would then leave by train, along with Mr. Frick’s coffin, later that evening, for Pennsylvania.
Lillian was in the front hall, handing various correspondence to the driver to deliver, when Miss Helen called out her name from the second floor.
Lillian took off at a trot up the stairs toward her. “What is it?”
“I want my father’s bed moved into my bedroom.”
“You want what?”
“You heard me.”
“Right now the servants have their hands full preparing for the service.” The chambermaids had been brought downstairs to help rearrange furniture for the viewing, and the parlor maids were stationed in the kitchen assisting the cooking staff. “Can it wait until tomorrow? Remember, you’ll be gone for almost a week in Pittsburgh.”
“No. It must be done right now.”
Lillian stifled a sigh of impatience, but she understood the strange impulse. The day after Kitty had died, she’d lain down in her mother’s bed and breathed in what was left of her essence, a mix of menthol and Pears soap, of sickness and health. Her mother’s body had been taken away and disposed of quickly—it had been the height of the second wave of influenza, and every doctor, hospital, and undertaker was overwhelmed with the dead and dying. She hadn’t even been able to put a rose on her grave.
“Very well. I’ll have the chore man see to it.” She asked Kearns to send the chore man upstairs with a few of the footmen, and watched with Miss Helen as they disassembled both Mr. Frick’s and Miss Helen’s beds, then brought Miss Helen’s down to a storeroom in the basement before reassembling Mr. Frick’s in Miss Helen’s room. The whole time, Miss Helen fretted about, warning them not to scratch the wood.
After they left, Lillian half expected Miss Helen to throw herself on the bed in a fit of hysterics, but instead, she went to her dressing table and sat staring out the window, the bed switch-around entirely forgotten.
“Have my father’s remains come back from the undertaker yet?” she asked.
Lillian checked the clock on the mantel. “Very soon.”
Miss Helen opened a drawer. “I want this to be buried with him.” She held Martha’s cameo in her hand.
Lillian considered all the things that diamond hidden inside could buy: clothes, food, rent money. The thought of it being buried underground, lost forever, seemed indecent. “Are you sure? What if you buried the cameo, but sold the diamond and donated the money to one of Mr. Frick’s causes instead?”
“No. He loved Martha best. This will be like he’s being laid to rest with a small piece of her.”
A valuable piece of her.
Lillian was concerned that Miss Helen would toss it away so cavalierly. She could never get it back, and Miss Helen was never one for having much foresight. What if she regretted it? “What if you had it made into a ring for your mother?”
“No. Papsie would want this, I’m sure of it. Come with me.”
They walked together down the back staircase. “When I get back from Pennsylvania,” said Miss Helen, “I’m going to insist that Mr. Danforth and I marry as soon as the mourning period is over.”
Lillian’s stomach dropped. “But what of our talk yesterday, about remaining independent?”
“My father wanted me wed. He very strongly wanted me wed, as we can see from his arrangement with you. So, wed I will be.”
Which meant Lillian would soon be caught in the middle once again. Would Mr. Danforth reconsider, now that Lillian had removed herself from the running, and choose Miss Helen after all? Her first reaction was no, he would not, but the more she considered his histrionics in the driveway—threatening to go down on one knee—the more she realized how little she knew him. His presence in the house would make her own untenable.
Bertha was exiting the art gallery as they approached.
“Are the flowers here yet, Bertha?” asked Lillian.
“No, miss. Not yet.”
“Have them brought in as soon as they arrive. We don’t have much time.”
The casket had been set up at the far end, near the enamels room, just below a melancholy Rembrandt self-portrait.
“How he would love this,” said Miss Helen. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”
Lillian had to admit that this was the ideal send-off for Mr. Frick. Surrounded by the works he loved most, and his family, in the palace he created with his wealth and eye for beauty. “It is.”
“Thank you, Miss Lilly, for taking such good care of him. And of me.”
Lillian shifted uncomfortably. She’d put everything she had into the preparations for Mr. Frick’s viewing, ensuring that they were executed precisely to her specifications, mainly because she hadn’t been able to do so with Kitty. On that cold February day, the undertakers had clumsily maneuvered the stretcher carrying her mother’s body down the stairs of their apartment building, slid her into the back of a dirty truck caked with mud, slammed the doors shut, and driven off. Miss Helen’s father would receive a very different send-off; Lillian would make sure of that.
Miss Helen took the cameo out of her pocket. Inside the coffin, Mr. Frick appeared serene and pale yet still strangely present, as if he’d just closed his eyes to remember something important and would open them at any moment.
Miss Helen placed the cameo in his palm and closed his thick fingers around it. The same hand with the scar from Martha’s pain now held Martha’s pink diamond. A fitting pairing. Maybe Miss Helen had been right, and this would be a way to lay to rest the ghost of the lost daughter and her father at the same time, to let them both go.
Bertha popped back in to say that the florists had arrived, and Lillian oversaw the placement of the arrangements while Miss Helen went up to dress. Then it was down to the kitchen to check in with the cook and back up to the gallery to go through the final checklist.
As the notes of the organ floated down the hall, Lillian stood next to Miss Winnie and watched as the family gathered around the coffin in a quiet moment before the other guests arrived. Mr. Childs stood next to his wife, Dixie, at the foot of the casket. Mrs. Frick blew loudly into a handkerchief as she and Miss Helen approached and took up a position on the side.
But Miss Helen immediately jumped back, as if pushed by an invisible force.
“It’s gone!” She turned to look at Lillian. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Mrs. Frick blew her nose again.
“Martha’s cameo, with the diamond!”
Now she had the family’s attention. “What diamond?” asked Mrs. Dixie.
“What on earth did you do with it?” demanded Mrs. Frick.
“I put it in Papsie’s hand, to take with him,” said Miss Helen. “But it’s not there.” She pointed into the coffin. Miss Winnie and Lillian drew close. It was true: Mr. Frick’s lifeless fingers were outstretched, not curled around the cameo the way Miss Helen had left them. Miss Helen reached in and lifted the hand, but there was nothing underneath.