JUST AFTER NEW YEAR 1931, Finn sat in the dining room of his house, his hands palms down on the polished table, and stared at the darkness outside. Isabelle came up from the kitchen to bring him a cup of tea and a sweet roll with butter. He ate while she perched nearby. She was already dressed and ready for the day, as was he, though it was still so early the sun hadn’t come up. The rest of the house was asleep.
Finn was shaved, in his best suit.
“We don’t have much coal left,” Isabelle said. “There hasn’t been delivery since Christmas and we almost out.”
“Use less,” Finn told her. He would get more soon.
“It’s cold,” she said. “And we still need to wash clothes. Wash children.”
“How dirty do these children get?” he said, carefully replacing his cup on the saucer so it didn’t clang.
“Yesterday your wife told me she doesn’t know where you going so early and staying out so late. She worry you drinking again.”
“Tell her not to worry,” Finn said. “Though I’ll admit, few things sound better right now than a drink. Let’s see what the number one issue will be in the next campaign for president, joblessness or the lack of legal liquor.”
He and Isabelle stared at each other. “All those poor people, out of work,” she said.
“Yeah. Those poor people.” Finn walked to the front hall. She followed him. He put on his coat, took his hat and an umbrella from the stand. He wondered how much they could get if they sold the Duchess grandfather clock that had been in Vanessa’s family since 1800.
“Vanessa said to ask you to pick up her dresses from Schumann. She says you had six of her finest with him since November.”
“Soon.” He didn’t look at Isabelle. “Oh, but that reminds me,” he said. “Vanessa asked me to ask you to please re-order the books the way they used to be, instead of the way they are now.”
“What?”
Finn explained again.
“This is what you want to tell me?”
“That’s what Vanessa wants done.”
“Why didn’t Vanessa say herself?” asked Isabelle. “She says things all time. Tell Finn this, tell Finn that.”
“I don’t know why. Just take care of it”—he rubbed the bridge of his nose—“so I don’t have to.”
Isabelle shook her head, clasped her hands together, and hardened her gaze. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Ni. You stand here drooping because you have too much to say, and real things, big things going on, and this is what you say? Are you hearing your own ears?”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” said Finn. “I couldn’t care less.”
“Then don’t talk to me about it,” said Isabelle. “Or to her. It’s too small.”
“I don’t want her to be upset by petty things, can you understand that?”
“It is up to Vanessa not to get upset by books, not up to you—”
“It’s not your place to say.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“Yes,” he said, impatient and irritated, “and if she’s upset by books, do you see how much harder it is for me to talk to her about important things?”
“You speaking to her about important things, are you?”
“Okay, enough.”
Isabelle shook her head. “Since we talking so honest, Finn—”
“We’re not talking that honest, Isabelle,” Finn said. “And I’m done.” He glanced at the clock behind her. “I have to go.”
“Again, not finished.” She looked up at him, her tone direct. “I think Vanessa getting upset by little things stops her addressing big things. Like when Adder leave Eleanor, that whole day Vanessa upset because Junie lost one pair of shoelace. Or when Mr. Adams get attack of heart, she spent two days questioning servants about crack in one of her dishes. How it happen, when it happen, why she wasn’t told. Walter has attack of heart, and his daughter upset about ding in dish. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“No! Plus I don’t want to hear it.”
They were in the vestibule by the front door. No room to move apart or away, no room to put distance between them.
“Books is excuse,” she said.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I don’t think you do,” she said. “And you not listening. You either ignore everything or you discuss big thing, but what you don’t do is humor her when she on and on and on about books on shelves when it’s January and books happen last June! Because your way, you just feeding crocodile.”
“What?” He blinked. “You have crocodiles in Ukraine?”
“You understand meaning, right?”
“No,” Finn said. “And I don’t want to.”
It was only 6:40 am.
Nothing is happy for him over whom terror looms. Isabelle knew this as bitter truth, and she saw it in all the people living in the mansion on Beacon Hill. Especially Finn. When she first came to live with them, it seemed to her as if nothing could ever be wrong here; or rather, nothing could ever be so wrong that it could not be made right. But there was no question—there were things happening that could not be made right, even here in this gorgeous palace made of hardwood and stone that used to have fresh flowers in every room and candles and paintings abounding.