Death Casts a Spell, Chapter 22

A week later, I went to pay a call on Mrs. Jacoby. I’d made up my mind to throw myself on her mercy, and ask her to intercede for Koko with St. Sebastian’s. The novelty of being at home had decidedly worn off for Koko, and I didn’t want her to have to make her way in an entirely new school. I wanted her back at St. Seb’s, and if bowing and scraping to Mrs. Jacoby would accomplish that, I’d do it.

Still, as the maid escorted me into the Jacoby parlor, I found myself feeling resentful toward the woman who I had come to see. What Mrs. Jacoby was doing to Koko was monstrous, but what she’d done to her own children was worse. Over the past weeks, I’d come to care for Eleanor, Jeannette, and for Pearl. To all of them, Mrs. Jacoby had denied the one thing every child is owed—a mother’s love. The consequences had almost been deadly.

Still, I had come here with a mission. For Koko’s sake, I determined to keep my outrage to myself.

She was waiting on the same divan on which she had received me before. I took the seat across from her.

“Miss Callahan,” she said. Her voice was not precisely warm, but neither did it hold the chill note of scorn from our previous meeting. “Will you take tea?” she asked.

My hands had healed a great deal—enough, at least, to hold a teacup without spilling. I accepted, and she poured for both of us. “I would like to thank you,” she said, “for rescuing Eleanor and Jeannette. I didn’t realize what a dangerous situation they had found themselves in. They were very lucky indeed to have your assistance.”

I went a trifle stone-faced as I tried to cover my surprise. The last thing I had expected from Mrs. Jacoby was thanks. And furthermore, it was Eleanor and Koko who had done the rescuing—though perhaps that detail had suffered somewhat in the telling. “You’re…certainly welcome,” I said. I was about to bring up my original mission, when Mrs. Jacoby spoke again.

“I’d like you to know that I’m going to call St. Sebastian’s and retract my complaint about your cousin,” she said. “I’m afraid I was rather upset when I first heard of Jeannette’s troubles. I’ve since had time to reconsider.”

“Oh,” I said, stupidly. I tried to think of something more to add. But with Koko’s fate unexpectedly resolved, I didn’t have much left to say.

“And I’d like to pay you,” she said. “For the trouble you’ve taken in this matter.”

My eyes narrowed. This was just a little too much largesse, a little too fast. The last time I’d been here, Mrs. Jacoby had nothing for me but threats. Now she was offering money? What was I missing?

She gave me a tight little smile. “I hope I can trust you to keep the entire matter discreet. The idea of Jeannette mixed up in some sort of spiritualist swindle—Well!” She shook her head sadly.

Now I got it. If I’d keep the whole Vetrovsky matter under wraps, she’d leave Koko alone—and sweeten the deal with a nice, juicy carrot. If I blabbed, though, she was prepared to bring out the stick.

Well, that was fine with me. I didn’t make a point of sharing my clients’ personal matters—and Eleanor had been a client, even if her mother hadn’t. I quoted her our usual fee, and she wrote out a check.

I slipped it into my pocketbook and headed for the door. But I stopped with my hand on the handle. The answer to one lingering question had finally occurred to me. I hesitated, wondering if I should just leave it alone. After all, I was walking away from this meeting in far better circumstances than I’d expected, and perhaps it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.

But even though I was sure I knew what had happened, I wanted to know why. I turned around. “There was one thing,” I said, “that I didn’t figure out for a very long time.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Jacoby’s tone of perfect unconcern didn’t falter. But I detected a small line between her lovely, manicured brows.

“The locket,” I said, and felt a thrill of triumph when the line intensified. “Who put the locket in Jeannette’s room?”

The fingers holding her teacup tightened. “My dear, I have no idea. Surely it doesn’t matter now?”

There it was: the port of my theory. She hadn’t asked, what locket? She knew exactly what I was talking about. I went on.

“It had to be someone who knew about Jeannette’s birth,” I said. “Someone with access to your home. Someone who knew that Jeannette’s mother had left her that locket—and who knew where you kept it.”

Her eyes fled from mine. I went on.

“And it had to be someone with a motive for reuniting Jeannette with her birth family. Who might that be?” I pretended to consider. “It couldn’t be your husband. The last thing he would want would be the exposure of his secret. And it couldn’t have been Freddie, either. She didn’t have access to the house—and if she wanted to reunite with Jeannette, she could have just walked right up and introduced herself.”

I paused. “Maybe it was someone who felt Jeannette deserved something,” I said. “Someone who wanted her to know what a mother’s love felt like. Even though she couldn’t provide it herself.”

A long, shuddering sigh came from Mrs. Jacoby, and she set down her teacup with a trembling hand. She touched its rim lightly with one delicate finger, and stared at it for a long moment before she looked up and met my eyes.

“Are you going to tell her?” she asked.

I considered. “I suppose I don’t have to,” I said. “But you might consider telling her yourself. Knowing that you helped reunite her with her family—that might go a long way toward repairing your relationship.”

Mrs. Jacoby’s mouth twisted into a bitter frown. “There is no relationship,” she said. “There never was.”

“But why not?” My voice softened as I stood there, transfixed by Mrs. Jacoby’s evident pain. Not long ago, I had envied her. Now I wondered how that had been possible.

“Because.” She looked at me coldly, and I felt hatred coming off of her in waves. But it wasn’t directed at me. No, it was all for herself. “I,” she said clearly. “Did not. Deserve her.”

I blinked at this. I had thought that the distance she had maintained between herself and Jeannette reflected distaste for the child—not for herself. Maybe the guilt of switching the girls had been eating at her all this time? Or maybe there was something I didn’t yet understand.

I met her cold stare with eyes that were as gentle as I could make them. “Why didn’t you deserve her, Mrs. Jacoby?”

The words came out of her with such violence, I wondered how she had kept them unspoken for so long. “Because I killed my baby!” She shook her head. “How could I claim the right to love any child after that?”

Her words were so unexpected, it took me a moment to be sure I had understood them. “Mrs, Jacoby, what—” I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

Now that she had spoken, Mrs. Jacoby couldn’t seem to hold back the words.

“I had a baby,” she said, without looking away from her teacup. “You know that. She was—damaged. Her face, her hands. She wasn’t right. But—”

She trailed off. “But you loved her,” I supplied.

Her eyes darted up to meet mine. “I was her mother,” she said. “She had a way of smiling that simply made me feel—” A small, sad smile curved her lips, then quickly was gone.

“Harold wanted nothing to do with her,” she continued. “He wanted to send her away, to another family, or to an institution. But I knew she’d have her best chance with us. Our money, our connections—we could make a life for her. I insisted that we keep her.”

I knew where this story was going, but for a moment the vision of love and hope that Mrs. Jacoby conjured was enchanting. What would life have been like if her dream had prevailed?

“What happened next?” I prompted gently.

“I liked to sleep with her. It made it so much easier, you know, the feeding. One morning I woke up, and she wasn’t there. Harold said—” She stopped, and with a trembling hand placed the her teacup back on the table. It came to rest on the edge, and tumbled off, sending a spray of tea across Mrs. Jacoby’s fine rose-colored carpet. She ignored it and covered her eyes with her hands.

The ending of the story came to me in a rush of horrified understanding. “He said you had rolled over her in your sleep,” I finished.

She sobbed into her hands. I stood stock still, transfixed by the sickness of the secret I’d just become a witness to. A despicable lie, one that had broken a family—no, two. Harold Jacoby had kidnapped Pearl, ripped her away from her own mother. And just to make sure there were no complaints, he’d told Mrs. Jacoby that she was to blame of the baby’s loss. What must those first days have been like for her, I wondered—mourning her daughter, crucified by guilt, and trying to provide care to another child? Surely it had been easier to hand baby Jeannette over to a nursemaid. Then a nanny. Then a boarding school. Surely every time Mrs. Jacoby looked at Jeannette, she saw the baby she believed she’d killed.

But she hadn’t wanted to punish Jeannette. “So you made sure Jeannette got the locket.”

Mrs. Jacoby nodded. “A girl should have a mother.”

I imagined her stealing into Jeannette’s room and placing the locket into the jewelry box, knowing that it would light the way to a new life for Jeannette, a life that she would have no part in. It had been a sacrifice. It had been a kind of love.

“I understand,” I said. “But then what about Eleanor? Surely she deserves a mother’s love, too.”

Mrs. Jacoby closed her eyes. “I thought things would be different with her,” she said. “My own child.” She shook her head without opening her eyes. “But I didn’t want her. I only wanted—” She spread her hands out, as though reaching for something—someone—who was not there.

Did it have to turn out this way? Couldn’t she have risen above the guilt and loss, to become a real mother to her girls? I didn’t know. But I couldn’t judge her. She’d been imprisoned inside a poisonous lie, and I couldn’t blame her for being damaged by it.

“Mrs. Jacoby,” I said. I hesitated, afraid of the next sentence I was going to speak. Afraid of the chaos it would unleash. If I told Mrs. Jacoby how her husband had betrayed her, it would become an incurable wound in her marriage. I didn’t think a woman could forgive something like that.

And what about Freddie? I could imagine Mrs. Jacoby swooping into her life and lifting Pearl right out of it. Perhaps without the urgency of Pearl’s situation to fixate on, Jeannette would find that life in poverty really didn’t suit her. She might return home—and Freddie could wind up with no one.

But I hadn’t the right to uphold a lie like the one that had poisoned the Jacobys—not even by my silence. I took a deep breath. “She’s alive,” I said.

Mrs. Jacoby pulled her hands slightly away from her face and looked at me. There was no hope in her eyes yet, just confusion. I went on.

“She didn’t die. Your husband gave her to another family. The same family he bought Jeannette from.”

She shook her head. She couldn’t accept it yet. I hurried on. “Her name’s Pearl now. She’s happy. She loves her sisters very much. She’s—” I smiled, thinking of Pearl’s ready hugs and her broad, deeply contented smile. “She’s lovely,” I said.

Mrs. Jacoby sat in total shock. She opened her mouth several times, but no words seemed to come to her. Finally she said, “Can I meet her?” Then, before I could answer, she shook her head. “But I don’t have the right,” she scolded herself. “She’s lived her life. What on earth can I do for her now?”

“Actually,” I said. “I can think of something.”

It took only a single phone call to convince the hospital board that an operation for Pearl would be in the best interests of their institution after all. Money. It sure looked nice.

Getting the twins to bring Pearl to the house took a little more convincing, mostly on Freddie’s part. She was certain that Mrs. Jacoby meant to rip Jeannette or Pearl—or both—out of her life. But two days later, I arranged for the twins and Pearl to have lunch at the Jacoby estate. It was an awkward meeting. Mrs. Jacoby hadn’t changed overnight; she was still the distant, haunted woman who had driven wedges into her family with the force of her guilt. But when Pearl wrapped her up in a hug, I saw her face shift. I saw her lay down a burden she’d been carrying for a long time.

“You’re my family,” Pearl told her. And neither of them wanted to let go.

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