“Yes, indeed. Here I am.” Furtively she brushed at a few tears that had collected. Tears not, unhappily enough, for a departed family member, but tears of weakness and nervous tension.
“Hiding out, are you?” Her sister, Hannah, similar in coloring and carriage but with fewer responsibilities about which to be concerned, moved closer for a sympathetic pat on the arm.
“Oh, Lord. I just had to get away from those old biddies for a while. There isn’t a one of them,” Camellia paused for a little stutter of breath, “not one, that isn’t here to find out all the gossip about Papa they might have lost out on. Nothing like getting it from the horse’s mouth, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, if you want to think of yourself as a horse...”
“You know what I mean. Oh, dear Miss Burton, I heard your father was found in a pool of blood already frozen to his body,” she mimicked the mincing tones already used in her hearing. “Oh, dear Miss Burton, I heard your father was discovered outside the door of a house of ill-repute. Oh, dear Miss Burton, I heard your father was stabbed/shot/hit over the head; can it possibly be true?”
“Filthy-tongued gossips,” agreed Hannah equably. “They’re hoping to see all of us girls break down into a puddle of grief. More grist for the rumor mill.”
With steady fingers, Camellia straightened the veil that was distorting her vision. Straightened —when she longed to do nothing more than tear the stupid bit of frippery off her head. But custom dictated, and so custom must have its way.
“Little does anyone realize just what went on behind our closed doors. Sometimes I wish I could feel grief for Papa. But all I feel is grief for us, left behind, and how we are to cope.”
In a sudden outpouring of emotion, Hannah threw her arms around the upright, brave, solemn figure. “I know, I know. What a hole he has left us in!”
But Camellia, who, as eldest, had always borne most of the responsibility for her two sisters and her cousin, was not about to relinquish any of that burden onto another’s unaccustomed and unprepared young shoulders. She could not yet divulge the contents of the letter received from Nathaniel Burton’s law firm, and the utterly frightening and debilitating news imparted about an equally frightening and debilitating future.
Instead, she set her mouth not to quiver, and her spine not to relax, and turned with a smile that would melt butter. “We’ll make the best of it,” she promised. “With the four of us together, we’ll always make the best of it. Now, I suppose we’d better get back to the crowd. There are a pack of mourners for us to deal with.”
And many more old ladies, wearing their bereavement best, all ready to flutter and coo over the orphaned Burton girls, in an excess of relish. A death in their neighborhood certainly upset the slow, monotonous routine of their lives; to have that death a murder, in shocking circumstances, added a delicious fillip of excitement.
It was, as might have been expected, a showy funeral, with far too many attendees and far too many fussy details. Fresh floral arrangements had been hard to come by, in this cold and snowy mid-December, but Miller Mortuary had managed urns full of tasteful fabric roses that almost matched the real thing in color and design. Fortunately, the parlor’s manager had, after a consultation with those in sorrow, done most of what was necessary. Planning a funeral comes along rarely (thankfully) in one’s life, so it was quite helpful that the surviving Burtons could lean on someone more knowledgeable and experienced.
As one of the Gilded Age families, living in a Lucas Street four-story (plus basement) showplace, Nathaniel Burton had claimed no particular place of worship as his own. Depending upon weather and mood, he and his daughters had occasionally attended St. Luke’s Evangelical United Church of Christ, or an up-and-coming Methodist edifice.
Thus, being possessed of no particular religious affiliation had led Camellia to the undertaker on call, some blocks away. He had, Master Elijah Miller, served the family well.
A full afternoon and evening’s worth of visitation, of the utmost decorum, in a spacious, elegant room that might have been lifted intact from someone’s home; refreshments of tea and coffee, served from silver pots, and plates full of tiny little biscuits; a basket overflowing with black-bordered calling cards: all the amenities.
Next day, the funeral itself meant mournful organ music and even heavier drapings of black and more black and black-edged handkerchiefs touched delicately to nonexistent tears. Then, for interment, a miserably cold ride to the cemetery in broughams and closed carriages.
The interval between that initial discovery of Nathaniel Burton’s body and the hour when his casket was settled into its final resting place seemed interminable. And when the services were finished, and the young Burtons, exhausted beyond measure, staggered home to their soft warm beds, there would be tomorrow.
A day of reckoning.
Chapter Three
IT WAS A BLEAK AND bitter Christmas tide, bereft as the Burtons were of their patriarch and any sort of merriment or festivity. No beautifully decorated fir, full of Mama’s Mercury glass ornaments and candles all lit up; no wreaths or boughs or garlands of green anywhere; no gifts, cunningly wrapped and crafted, waiting to be opened with exclamations of glee and delight.
Actually, the whole season also felt a bit boring. Long before it would be time to put their mourning away, all four girls were heartily sick of the fabric that draped them, and the main parlors, in depressing black. And, for Camellia, underneath the daily routine of dealing with housemaids and menus, laundry problems and minor repairs, lay the nagging worry about finances. She didn’t yet know their current state of affairs, but bills for normal household expenses and those for the funeral service, all marked Past Due, had begun to arrive with insidious frequency.
Nathaniel Burton had held an unwavering belief that the fair sex were put upon earth for but one purpose—to serve as decorative creatures who must tame and civilize their rougher, hairier counterparts. This viewpoint, Camellia was now beginning to realize, turned out to be outmoded and, quite possibly, rather dangerous. She and her sisters had been trained for little, except how to wear pretty clothes in a pretty manner, how to attend afternoon teas and evening dinner dances, how to simper at potential suitors and flutter an ivory fan.
True, she had learned how to manage the occasionally staggering details of running the Lucas Street mansion, over her father’s strenuous objections. After all, he employed a housekeeper; why couldn’t Camellia be satisfied to let Mrs. Pelinsky handle things?
But, as for being aware of just how much money it took, how much goods and utilities and upkeep cost on a monthly basis, she was completely in the dark. Now she deeply regretted that oversight. How could she have been so foolish?
Somehow they limped through Christmas and a brand new year of 1871, to be treated in January to more blowing, drifting snow and clogged streets and freezing temperatures.
By mid-month, Camellia had pulled herself together enough to respond, with a sense of dread, to December’s missive from the legal firm of King, Wilkins, Carter, and King. It was a nicely written letter, the penmanship clear, the ink a crisp black, upon smooth vellum that held the family crest. She requested the courtesy of an appointment in the very near future.
Llewellyn King, senior partner, sent an immediate reply. It would be his duty, and his pleasure, to work with the young Burtons and guide them through the morass of legal pitfalls. Might he suggest they join him in his office on the last Monday in January, at 1:00 p.m.?
The date and the time suited everyone.
Thus, promptly after swallowing what they could of an early luncheon (an anxious Camellia, in particular, found that even the tastiest dishes simply refused to go down her throat), the four girls climbed into their carriage, driven by Henry Caldwell, the coachman, and set off for their meeting.