Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1925

w e're here." Lauren nudged Elsa awake as the train pulled into the station in Newport, Rhode Island. It was only a slight detour on their way home from Boston, and Lauren hadn't been able to resist.

Elsa blinked, then pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "What is the plan, again? Are we just going to show up?"

Energy building, Lauren leaned forward to look through the window. "No, no. My father is meeting us here at the station and will escort us to the museum. Or rather, to the old house that's being renovated into one. He's here this weekend, anyway, and when I told him we'd be in Boston, he insisted on showing us the place."

Elsa covered a yawn. "Is he fully recovered from his run-in with the tracks, then?"

"Apparently." Lauren stood and pulled her valise down from the shelf above the seats in their compartment. "You're a sport for coming with me."

"What else would I do? Miss a chance to see Boston? Newport is a bonus."

Lauren smiled. They'd paid homage to Revolutionary War sites and relaxed at a fine bed and breakfast, but the primary purpose of the trip had been Lauren's meeting at the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday. She'd needed to meet with the Egyptian art team and confirm the loan of a couple of their pieces for her spring exhibit.

"I can still taste the Boston cream pie from last night. That alone was worth the trip." Elsa grinned sideways at Lauren.

The train chugged to a stop, and the doors opened. Bags in hand, Lauren and Elsa climbed down the metal stairs and crossed the platform to the station. After passing through the ladies' waiting room, they emerged onto the street.

Lauren's father waved from the front seat of a taxi. When he started to get out of the vehicle, Lauren picked up her pace. "Don't bother," she called, "we'll be right there."

She had half expected him to be late if he came at all, based on his history of breaking promises. The same distrustful side of her had also harbored doubts about the Napoleon House and the fire her father had claimed had stolen him away over Thanksgiving. Until she saw it for herself, it felt mythical, somehow, like another one of her father's stories, embellished for maximum effect.

Wrinkles webbed from the corners of Lawrence's eyes as he welcomed them into the vehicle. For the rest of the car ride through town, he spoke of repairs and renovations, barely pausing for Lauren or Elsa to say a word. Her father could make a zoning battle with the city aldermen sound dramatic. But add in a raging fire, its smoldering aftermath, and the resulting disapproval from the surrounding community, and the tale was fit for the stage. He reached its climactic conclusion right as the car pulled into the circle drive of a Gilded Age mansion.

For once, his timing was flawless.

Elsa stepped out of the car while Lauren exited the other side and gave her father a hand to support him. "Are your knees bothering you?"

He told the driver where he could warm up while he waited, then waved away Lauren's concern. "No more than any other man my age, I imagine." He pointed to the house with his walking cane. "There she is, the poor old dame."

"Oh ..." Words trailed away as Lauren took in the ragged edge where the attic had once been. A tower climbed the outside corner of the first three levels, but its turret had burned away. The silhouette looked nothing like the photograph in the brochure. Instead of a roof, only a makeshift affair of tarps and unfinished wood covered the attic floor.

"I've made a name for myself in Newport now, but not at all the name I wanted. The old families who've been here since the Gilded Age blame me for the fire. Never mind that the faulty wiring connection would have resulted in fire whether I'd bought the place or not. I'm in charge of renovations, so it must be my fault."

Lauren could imagine the gossips dragging his name through the mud. "They should consider themselves lucky to have you fixing the place up," she said. "They couldn't have approved of an old mansion falling into decay, either."

"It's hard to tell with the roof gone," Elsa said, cocking her head, "but is this French architecture, Uncle Lawrence?"

Brightening, Lawrence confirmed that it was. "A perfect fit for a museum named in honor of Napoleon."

Mullioned windows reflected the sun on three levels.

Freshly fallen snow draped a sparkling mantle over the grounds, which rolled away from the house like a bolt of satin until it reached a lacework of bare trees, their every limb encased in crystal. The tops swayed in the wind, and branches cracked as ice broke off and fell soundlessly into the snow. If she looked past the soot-stained limestone chateau, the sprawling grounds reminded Lauren so much of her childhood home outside Chicago, it nearly took her breath away.

"You'll have to imagine the mansard rooftop and a large sign out front that reads, ‘The Napoleon House.' Spelled in English, French, and hieroglyphs. I'll consult with you to get that right, Doctor." He winked at her.

"I'll bill you," she teased, turning up her collar against a raw, damp wind. "Shall we?" She offered her father her arm to steady his ascent up the steps.

Inside the house, he closed the door, ensconcing them all in a patchwork of shadows and the scant light coming through the windows. "The electricity hasn't been turned back on yet as a safety precaution. We need another inspection of the rewiring job they did after the fire."

"Smart." Lauren stepped into the spacious entryway. Before them was a double staircase. Beautiful, but impractical for older patrons and for moving large or heavy artifacts. "Are you putting in an elevator?"

"Already done." Lawrence walked forward, leading Lauren and Elsa past the staircase to see a shiny brass elevator. "Another gigantic headache, but that's over and done with, and here we are."

Nodding, Lauren slipped into what must have been a grand parlor.

Elsa gasped. "Lauren! Did you see this?" Still outside the room, she pointed to a spot to the right of the door.

Lauren joined her. On the wall, a brass plaque read, The Dr. Lauren Westlake Gallery .

"I hope you don't mind." Her father clasped his hands. "Each of us board members dedicated a room to a person of our choice. There's no one I would rather honor above you."

Lauren stepped back, feeling thrown off guard and unbalanced. "Why?" The gesture, though lovely, didn't make sense. "Isn't there a colleague or a mentor who's been more influential in your career? More deserving?" Her protest escaped her before she realized it might offend. "I hate to sound ungrateful," she added. "I simply don't understand."

"Any colleagues I had were only temporary, our relationships over at the end of a given dig. My mentors are no longer walking this earth, God rest them. This—" He spread his arms to encompass the house. "What I'm doing here is building a legacy. A legacy that will last beyond my lifetime. My only other legacy is you. In my mind, dedicating one to the other is only fitting."

Lauren didn't know how to respond. She could translate an an cient language. She knew how to tell a fake from the real thing. But she didn't fully trust herself to interpret her own father.

She managed a "thank you," then went back inside the largely empty room. It would be a giant security risk to keep items of any value in a house that was rarely in use. Still, a few crates sat on the floor, beckoning.

Elsa engaged Lawrence in conversation in the hallway, where he sat in the only chair they had seen on the first floor so far. Kneeling beside a crate, Lauren removed the lid and peeked inside at the nest of wood shavings. After trading her woolen mittens for the cotton gloves she kept in her purse, she carefully drew her fingers through the packaging material until she found something to grasp.

Several somethings, in fact.

She shifted to sit more comfortably. One by one, she placed each shabti on her lap. She had seen and handled thousands of these funerary objects in her lifetime. A single tomb could contain up to four hundred of them. But the small carved figures held an entirely different significance here, in a gallery named for her, with her father sitting outside the doorway.

Her memory scrolled backward to her as a little girl, sifting through a box of treasures her father had brought back from Egypt after an eight-month absence from her life. She'd found a set of three wooden shabti, which appeared to be a man, woman, and girl. At the age of nine years old, she knew their purpose. These objects were buried with noble Egyptians so that they could come alive and perform manual labor for the deceased in the afterlife.

But to Lauren, they looked like a family. They were even better than the paper dolls Nancy had given her to keep her quiet when her mother had lain in bed for days at a time.

Lauren turned over one of the shabti in her lap now, admiring the fine detail. O shabti , one read, if I be summoned to do any work which has to be done in the realm of the dead, you shall act for me on every occasion of making arable the fields, of flooding the banks, or of conveying sand from east to west: "Here I am," you will say.

Here I am. Those three little words called up another memory in Lauren's mind. "Here I am!" she had wanted to shout as a child, as though she were playing a never-ending game of hide-and-seek. But no one was looking for her. Her father found what he wanted in a country on the other side of the world. Her mother rarely left her room.

No one was looking for Lauren.

She closed her eyes and saw a much younger Lawrence enter the study, where she was playing with the shabti.

"This is a family," she'd told him, holding up the mother, father, and daughter. Willing him to understand this was the way they should be: together.

Smiling, he'd told her she could keep them.

He didn't understand what she was trying to say. How could he be so happy when she felt inside out and upside down? Buried hurts had boiled to the surface, and after keeping them corked for so long, she finally released the pressure. "Take this one back ." She'd thrust the male figure toward him. "He 's never around. We don't need him." Her voice had cracked on the lie. "He doesn't want to be around these two, and I don't need him, either."

Her outburst had not made her feel better. She'd cried herself to sleep that night. The truth was, she did need her father. She needed her father and mother both. But that didn't stop him from leaving again. Her feelings made no difference. Better to keep them locked up tight.

"Lauren?" Elsa's voice gently pulled her back. "Do you want to see the rest of the house?"

Lauren boxed up her memories along with the shabti she replaced in the crate. All of that had happened a long time ago. She and her father had both grown and changed. They were different people now.

Rejoining Elsa and Lawrence in the hall, she asked what his next steps were. The list of tasks and responsibilities he recited made her head spin. He led them to a room at the rear of the first floor and opened the door.

She knew this place. That desk with the drawers whose handles resembled little pyramids. The bookshelves with the feet carved to look like lions' paws held the same collection of books. Even the rug spreading over the hardwood floor held the same stacked fan pattern.

Astonished, Lauren crossed the room to examine the framed map of the world on the wall. "Is it the same one?" she asked in a whisper. She could not count the number of times she'd come into his office while he was away, tracing her finger between Illinois and the postmark of his most recent letter.

"It is."

Lauren turned to Elsa. "It's like stepping into our old house. His office was exactly like this." Even for all the visits she and her mother had made to Manhattan, her cousin had never come to Illinois.

"Ancient history isn't the only past worth preserving." Lawrence smiled. "Being here brings me some of my fondest memories."

"Mine, too," Lauren admitted. She was bewildered by the onslaught of nostalgia she felt in this partially burned Newport mansion.

"Do you sleep here, Uncle Lawrence?" Elsa pointed to a cot peeking out from behind the desk.

"When necessary." He sighed. "I don't like to spend money on a hotel when I have this grand house completely to myself. However, with the electricity off and the roof gone, I'm staying elsewhere while in town."

The burden of his responsibility seemed like a physical weight upon his shoulders. "How long are you staying this time?" Lauren asked.

"I won't leave until the most urgent repairs are completed. With one exception. I've got a reason to come back to New York by Tuesday. Don't I?"

Hope sparked, and his knowing smile fanned it to life. "I do love to visit the past," he admitted, "but it's time for me to live in the present."

Her birthday. He'd remembered, at last.