A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies by Ellen Cooney Read Free Book Online Page B

cream. She only ate it because Mrs. Petty had cooked it. She considered going on a fast; she considered stopping eating entirely. She imagined herself shrinking under her bedsheets, like the potion-drinking Alice, getting smaller and smaller and smaller, except that, for her, there would be no marvelous adventure.
    Then a note was presented to her, privately, a note left with one of the maids, in Sophy’s scrawny printing. “You must not be sad you must be good and you shall have some letters she sed so and goodbye I do not like your family just you and Mr Haze we go to the cittie.” At the bottom Mrs. Petty had written, “I shall write very soon.”
    That was when she made up her mind to get well. She must have been preparing for this reunion all along, without knowing it. The image of her husband at the edge of the square was burned into the backs of her eyes, so that she’d seen almost nothing else all the way to Boston—his look of surprise, his hat dropping to the ground, the woman beside him in her belted coat, her arm on his—all that was gone, as if it had happened a long time ago, as if it were truly meant to be.
    The door was flung open. She jumped. Her arms were already extending themselves for the embrace she was certain was coming. She felt her throat clutching up and willed herself not to burst out with emotions, like she’d done with the Gersons.
    Then suddenly: “You can’t stay here.”
    This was Mrs. Petty, of course it was: this tall, sturdy, big-bosomed woman, bursting toward Charlotte, panting lightly and patting her chest where her heart was. She had run up the steep flight from the kitchen in shock, it seemed, like someone running away from a fire. She wore her same old tie-in-the-back heavy cloth apron. The ties had come loose and the sides of the apron hung limply at her sides.
    “Mrs. Heath, you must leave this place at once.”
    There was a flagstone path outside the conservatory at home, and one chilly morning, before she was sick, Charlotte was out there; one of her horses had got loose and left a lot of droppings. Not good. She’d put the horse back in the stable and was just returning to the path to clean it up when, rounding the corner of the house, she happened upon a maid who’d got there before her. The maid had a bucket of cold water which she heaved up, in a big expansive gesture, and splashed toward the stones, except that Charlotte was now in the way. The force of the blow was like a punch in the face out of nowhere.
    Reeling and dripping, she’d steadied herself on the arm the horrified maid held out to her, and she’d been frightened down to her bones because she saw how simple it was to be knocked over—to have your balance shot out—by something as ordinary as cold water. She had felt as insubstantial in her body as a leaf.
    That was how it felt right now with Mrs. Petty. The valise and the baked goods in Charlotte’s hands slipped down to the floor; she reached to hold on to the wall. She felt something inside freezing up, as if she’d never move again—was it returning? The paralysis? The empty cave that her own mind turned into?
    Mrs. Petty loomed up, larger, with a look of worry, but also of firm resolution. And someone came up behind her, from the hall. A man. All beige and white, in a dressing gown of soft tan cashmere, open at the chest, revealing a crisp white formal shirt; his hair was the color of sand. His trousers were white flannel. He had a staunch muscular compactness, like Napoleon, but there was something about him that was gentle, even delicate. He was fine-featured, with narrow eyes, a narrow nose, and high cheekbones. His face looked recently shaved, and was smooth and pale. He was shorter than Mrs. Petty, so he had to look up to her, but you knew who was the one in charge.
    “I was wondering,” he said to Mrs. Petty, as though Charlotte weren’t there, “what is the progress of the supper for numbers Eight and Eleven?”
    Mrs. Petty looked