“Where did you find that?”
“Blue box.”
“You were told not to open the blue box.”
“I thought that meant the red box.”
“It did not.”
The girl placed the mask over her face.
“Was this yours?”
“Yes.”
“Did you wear it to a ball?”
“Yes.”
“Was Grandpapa there?”
“Yes.”
The child grinned.
“Did he know who you were?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kiss?”
Clara nearly dropped her tea.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we were not married.”
The girl looked disappointed.
Clara recovered the mask.
“Also because your great-grandmother interrupted.”
“What did she do?”
Clara smiled.
“Something impolite.”
The child demanded the story.
Clara gave a shorter version.
Not false.
Short.
Aunt Lydia’s warning lived in her still.
Children did not need every adult grievance immediately.
But she also remembered Nathaniel? No, different story. Need no cross-story. She remembered her own lesson: delay could not become permanent concealment.
So when her grandchildren grew older, she showed them the documents.
The mask.
The trust settlement.
William’s letters.
Augusta’s confession letter? There was none. Good.
One grandson asked:
“Why didn't you sue?”
Clara smiled.
“We nearly did.”
“Would you have won?”
“Partly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Law and arithmetic often become less dramatic when professionals enter.”
The boy frowned.
“Did Lord William steal?”
Clara sighed.
Every generation wanted the clean noun.
She explained.
Again.
The child listened badly.
Better than nothing.
By the 1870s, Harcourt House changed around the family.
Gas lighting replaced many candles.
Furniture moved.
Walls repapered.
The ballroom remained.
Clara entered it at eighty for the first time in years.
Her grandson was hosting a winter reception.
No masks.
Thank God.
She stood near the same pillar where she had waited in pale blue.
The room looked smaller.
That offended memory.
Rooms from youth were supposed to remain enormous.
A young woman approached.
“Lady Harcourt?”
Clara smiled.
She had been Dowager Viscountess after Julian’s death, though she rarely used the title with enthusiasm.
“Yes?”
“I am Margaret Pritchard.”
Clara stared.
The granddaughter of Nathaniel Pritchard.
The solicitor who had reconstructed her trust.
Margaret worked with the school Clara supported.
She held several papers.
“Your grandson said you might look at these.”
Clara laughed.
“Of course he did.”
“What are they?”
“Scholarship accounts.”
Clara looked toward the ballroom.
“Bring them.”
They sat.
At a table.
During a party.
Clara reviewed accounts because life apparently enjoyed symmetry.
One column was wrong.
She found it.
Margaret frowned.
“How?”
“My father trained me to look for mistakes.”
Then Clara stopped.
She thought of Edward.
Of William.
Of Julian.
Of Augusta.
Of money becoming secrecy.
Of secrecy becoming history.
She smiled.
“Also experience.”
The white mask eventually passed to Charlotte.
Then Charlotte’s daughter.
Not because it was valuable.
It was cloth, pasteboard, ribbon.
It aged badly.
By 1902 the fabric had yellowed.