New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [283]
If you took the outside lane in a cab, the view over the river was magnificent.
But not today. With the rain coming relentlessly down, she could see neither the water below, nor even the tower ahead. Instead, it was as if she’d entered the rain cloud itself, humid, insistent, depressing, sealing her off from every hope.
As the rest of the afternoon had passed, she’d assumed that Master had just been delayed. Early in the evening, she had wondered if something might have happened to him. By eight she’d concluded that the weather was so bad he’d called the whole thing off; but he might at least have sent a message to her, and a cab to take her home. She’d asked the waiter to bring her a pot of tea, and continued to wait, just in case he turned up. At nine, she’d ordered some hot soup. Now it was after ten, and she’d had enough. She didn’t care what had happened to him, she was going home. She asked the hotel porter to find her a cab.
But an hour passed, and there was no cab to be found.
It was gone midnight before Lily de Chantal decided to turn in for bed. She’d been rehearsing for her part the next day. Not that the role was difficult, but she wanted to be sure she performed it perfectly. And truth to tell, she was savoring it as well.
Revenge, even for someone with her kindly nature, was sweet.
Nine in the morning would be about right, she thought. If little Miss Clipp wasn’t back from the wild goose chase she’d been sent on already, she would be by then. Catch her first thing, before she had time to collect her wits.
“I can’t do it myself, my dear,” Hetty had said, “because if Frank ever found out, he’d hold it against me. But you could do it. A man can forgive his mistress more easily than his wife. Besides,” she’d added with a smile, “you owe me a favor, I think.”
So the tasks had been assigned. Hetty had written the note, Mary had arranged the delivery, and now she, Lily de Chantal, was going to send the little bitch packing.
Hetty had given her everything she needed, and Lily had rehearsed her speech precisely.
“I am afraid, Miss Clipp, that I have proof—absolute proof—that you stole jewelry from Mrs. Linford of Philadelphia. I even have witnesses who can perfectly describe seeing you wearing the items after the theft. You will go to jail, Miss Clipp. Unless, of course, you’d like to leave New York, today—and to leave without saying a word to Mr. Master. And if you make any attempt to contact him in the future, then we shall take all this evidence to the police.”
Donna Clipp would go fast enough after that. She’d have to.
The neatness of the plan had been summarized by Hetty, days before.
“I want Frank to think she’s jilted him. Failed to turn up for the ride upriver, then left before he comes back. That’ll hurt his pride, I’m afraid, but it’ll bring him back to his senses. He’ll be looking for comfort; he’ll be looking to us.”
“Us?”
“To you, to me, to the way things were. I think we’re too old to quibble about those details now, aren’t we?”
“You,” said Lily de Chantal, “are a remarkable woman, and he’s lucky to have you.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said Hetty. “I quite agree.”
Yes, thought Lily now, she’d be glad to dispatch little Miss Clipp on her way, for both of them.
So she was greatly astonished, twenty minutes later, when the doorman knocked upon the apartment door to ask if she wished to receive a visitor. And still more so to see behind him, soaked to the skin, the figure of Frank Master.
At one in the morning, at Henry’s Hotel, Brooklyn, there was a battle of wills. To the great annoyance of the manager, Donna Clipp had demanded a bedroom and refused to pay for it, on the grounds that it was the hotel’s fault that they hadn’t found her a cab.
“I could put you out of doors,” he had said.
“Try it,” she’d replied. “You never heard me scream.”
He did step out of doors, with a view to ejecting her, all the same.