The desk had once belonged to her mother, and her mother’s mother, and that made Meredith cherish it all the more. The graceful desk carried the history of her mother and grandmother, and one day Meredith would pass it on to her own daughter.
She wondered, if her mother had lived, would she be as worried as Aunt Delilah was that Meredith had not married yet? Somehow, she believed her mother would have naturally understood her only daughter’s desire to write and would not have pressured her to find a husband at all.
At least that was what Meredith preferred to think.
She lovingly touched the soft grain of the cherrywood desk with her fingers, the memory of her mother still strong within her, and sighed softly.
“Meredith, please!”
Her aunt’s tone was growing rather sharp as her impatience mounted, so with a sigh of resignation, Meredith raced out of her bedroom, down the upper hallway of their large brownstone, and into her aunt’s private sitting room.
“Yes, Aunt Delilah?” Meredith said as she entered the ornately decorated space she had known since childhood.
Hand-knitted lace doilies covered every tabletop surface, which were adorned with china figurines and crystal vases bursting with brightly colored silk flowers. The cluttered and overly ornamented room was quite in fashion, but Meredith usually found it more than a bit overwhelming. Her tastes tended to favor simpler, cleaner, and less-cluttered surroundings.
“What took you so long?” Delilah’s words were filled with agitation. “You must make more of an effort to come when you are called, my dear. It’s disrespectful to keep me waiting like that.”
Hiding her ink-stained fingers behind her back, Meredith wished she’d had time to wash her hands with the rose Castile soap. As she looked toward her aunt, Meredith wanted to say she was not a trained lap dog who would obediently come when called, but she kept the comment to herself.
Instead, she began to explain, “I am very sorry, Aunt Delilah. I was writing, and I was at the most exciting part of the story when the—”
“Yes, yes, I am quite aware of what kept you so occupied. Still, it is not an excuse to keep me waiting, Meredith.” Delilah wrinkled her nose in distaste.
Delilah Remington was a tiny woman, built almost like a china doll, with pale skin, blond hair, and wide blue eyes. Although she was close to forty years old, she did not look anywhere near her age. Somehow her aunt managed to appear quite youthful and slender, nothing like the mother of two children tended to look.
But Delilah Remington’s looks were quite deceptive. Her outwardly sweet appearance hid a steely and determined will. Meredith knew better than to argue with the woman who had raised her since she was ten years old and lost her mother.
“Now, sit down, dear. I have some things to discuss with you, and none of it is pleasant.”
Without a word, Meredith adjusted the black silk of her mourning gown and sat upon the burgundy, velvet-tufted sofa across from her aunt. She took a deep breath and prepared herself for she knew not what.
The last few weeks had been tumultuous and terrible, to say the least. Actually, they had been quite heartbreaking. If Meredith had not had her writing to keep her mind occupied, she did not know what she would have done. Perhaps curled up into a little ball and wept ceaselessly in a corner?
She raised her eyes to meet her aunt’s steady gaze and waited. One could not rush her aunt Delilah.
Delilah folded her hands primly in her lap, and her chin rose in determination as she spoke, the hint of a British accent still recognizable in her voice even after fifteen years in the United States.
“I have made a plan for us. Apparently, we cannot continue on as we have been. It seems they’ve left us no money, and we have no other recourse available to us. I have to provide for my children and for your future as well, Meredith. We’re going to leave New York. Just this afternoon, I booked us passage on a ship to London at the end of the week.”
Meredith had to stop herself from releasing a shrill scream.
Leave New York?
What in heaven’s name was her aunt thinking? That was just it. She probably wasn’t thinking clearly at all. Meredith’s father had died only three weeks ago, and now Aunt Delilah wanted to drag her away from the only home she had ever known? It was unthinkable.
Meredith had no desire to leave the pretty brownstone near Riverside Park where she had spent her entire life. She blinked back a sudden rush of tears as she stared in a mute and horrified silence at her aunt.
“I know you are surprised, my dear,” Delilah continued, in a determined yet gentle tone. “I can see it on your pretty face. But your father and your uncle have left us no other choice. I spent all day yesterday and this morning with our lawyers and advisers, while you have been sequestered in your bedroom writing heaven knows what. They’ve left us with nothing. Nothing. Do you understand what that means, Meredith? For us? We have virtually nothing left to live on.”
“But I don’t . . . there was . . . what . . . what happened to all the money, Auntie?” Meredith could barely get the words out to form a coherent question.
The stunning news had her head reeling. How could they have nothing left to live on? It was impossible. Unimaginable. Her father’s business, the Remington Oil Company, had been worth over a million dollars! At least that was what she had always been told by her father. He had always been so proud of his company.
Delilah’s lower lip trembled, and she seemed on the verge of tears.
“It seems there wasn’t as much money as we were led to believe, and what they did have . . . well, frankly, they spent it all. The Remington brothers put every last penny they had into buying all that land in Texas, just before . . . the accident.”
The words “the accident” hovered ominously in the air around them.
“The accident” had turned their world upside down.
The deadly explosion in a muddy oilfield in Texas had taken Meredith’s father from her just weeks ago. The words “the accident” had been whispered and murmured in hushed tones since the day they received the dreadful telegram bearing the news that John Remington and his younger brother, Joseph, the founders of the Remington Oil Company, had been tragically killed in an oil rig accident while exploring the vast tract of land they had recently purchased.
“I . . . I simply don’t understand.” Meredith stared at her aunt in disbelief.
How could her father have left her with nothing?
Her dear, sweet, handsome father, whom she loved desperately but, in actuality, did not spend much time with, had always been a wonderful and generous provider. Meredith had lived entire her life in ease and comfort, never wanting for anything.
John Remington had doted on Meredith, his only child, and she had adored him in return. Her father loved her and had even encouraged her writing . . . when he’d been home. He filled her head with promises of all the wonderful things they would do together when he came back home. Every sentence always began with, “When I get back . . .”
For as much as he loved Meredith, the main focus of John Remington’s life and his time had been the creation of the Remington Oil Company. Meredith hadn’t even seen her father in the last three years, so busy had he been travelling the country with his brother and buying up all the land they thought would bring in oil.
Her father and her uncle Joseph had been fairly successful too. Up until the accident in Texas.
The accident. It had changed everything for them. Apparently more than Meredith even realized. She looked at her aunt.
Delilah’s usually sweet face grew hard with consternation.
“I don’t quite understand where all the money went either, my dear. But Joseph’s lawyer laid everything out for me in no uncertain terms.