Iron Behind the Velvet - Chapter 3

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Where is Fancy Bred? ¹

Mouse had threaded a precious line of electricity to their chambers, so she thumbed the switches, the desk lamp with its green satin shade at its softest glow, the tiffany floor lamp at the entry jeweled with light, and stooped to her work. It had been but a few weeks since she’d packed her father’s things for moving, yet each lid lifted, each crimp of tissue peeled away, each slender curl of excelsior scooped aside sparked a childlike glee. There you are! And you! The near-magic mingling of her life – her history – Above with her future Below sent the hours of Sunday speeding past, the emptiness she’d feared might set in, kept at bay with the simple unwrapping of a parrot-shaped letter opener or an enameled ink well and pen rest. How often as a child, she’d flipped open the well-cap, fully expecting a genie to appear, begging for her fondest wish.

His office had become hers, though arches of sparkling granite replaced the coffered ceiling and rich paneling of Sutton Place. His desk, more likely a dining table in some grand hall more than a century before, centered the round room, the candlelight a dance in the rich-red patina of the finish. Still dwarfed in it, she settled in his big leather chair and turned the antique globe idly with her fingertips, remembering the game he often played with her. He would spin, and she would stop it, one hand over her eyes. No peeking! Her task then was to study and learn and make up a story about a little girl who lived ... wherever.

How he would enjoy her story of this place!

She took the long way back to her apartment, a part of her reluctant to return Above. Their hideaway under the bandshell was silent, but she had expected that. Her world was very quiet without Vincent, without even the hope of his arrival. She would find out from Dominic their whereabouts, and she would go to him. Two days and she burned from his absence.

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“Yes, Jenny, everything’s fine! What do you mean, I never call you! Just last ... okay, okay ...” She trapped the telephone between her ear and shoulder as she rummaged through her refrigerator. “I thought you might come over for dinner. I’ll cook. Pasta, maybe?” Pausing to listen, she smiled first at Jenny's laughter and then at her words. “No, I’m not joking! You like my primavera pasta ... don’t you?”

She listened again and laughed herself. “This is getting serious if you’re turning down my offer. Dinner with Ned? I’d love to meet him ... Sure, I’ll be there. Right ... an hour. Don’t worry, I know where it is ... See you soon.”

For a moment she froze, her hand with the telephone in it hovering in the air above the hook. A succession of feelings washed over her, as much tone as temperature, from tenderness to a twinge of pique, from sun-warmed to  clammy chill. They’d shared so much and it was work, hard work, keeping her secret from Jenny, and it stood every chance of coming between them. But how much could she share without sharing the whole truth? And now Jenny was falling in love. Catherine wanted to hear and she wanted to talk. A part of her chafed at her constraints.

She dropped the receiver onto its rest and the base emitted a short, sharp briiiing. Startled, she shrank back, only after seconds of sustained silence venturing to reach for the telephone, to bring it to her ear again. A simple dial tone greeted her, a sound signifying only readiness ... promising only ... connection.

Striding to the bedroom to change, she dismissed her sudden trepidation.

I sound like Narcissa, she thought. It was a stray electrical impulse, a ... nothingness.


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Jenny sat alone at the small table, radiant, her smile for everyone and no one ... brilliant. Catherine bent to kiss her cheek and slid into her chair.

She knew that feeling, that look. Every morning for weeks now, she’d seen a similar smile in her own mirror, an I-am-loved smile. She knew the feeling of a warm palm to her face in greeting at the end of a long day, to the small of her back in anticipation. She knew the music of love sounds, the sharp intake of breath at a certain touch ...

The images suddenly so vivid, she had to shake herself loose from them. A gulp of water, a quick fan with the menu ...

Concentrate ... concentrate, she admonished herself, on Jenny.

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Vincent was thinking of her in a moment of work respite. He’d paused at the spring only to drink, only to wash the dust from his face and eyes, only to rest briefly against the cavern wall and listen to the musical trickling. But in that moment, his imagination overtook him, and she appeared, close to him, tucked under his arm. Her skin was satiny ... warm ... and he touched her there ... and there ...

The stone basin was mercifully deep and cold. He plunged his hands and then his arms up to the elbows into the water, bringing palms full of that near-ice to his face to douse the flame. He could not lose his focus, and yet his heart arrowed to its target, leaving behind a hollowed man to toil. Two days gone, only two days.

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“So, before I start talking about me, which, believe me, I intend to do ... let’s hear about you!” Jenny demanded, reaching for a bottle of white wine. With her glass, Catherine chased the pouring stream that wandered in Jenny’s enthusiasm. “Where have you been keeping yourself? I call; I get your machine. Am I going to have to camp in your office to see you? We need another shopping trip.”

“What? Don’t tell me you need more shoes.” Catherine teased.

“Actually ...” Jenny paused for a sip from her goblet. “I was thinking ... I need something from that store you found, near the Village, where you bought that ... extremely romantic ... sculpture, the one that reminded me of a Snowden, the bronze and the geode?” ²

“Really?” Catherine was practiced at the subtle change of subject, but she was caught unawares and stuttered at an answer. “I, um ... I don’t think there was another one ... the artist ... um ... unless ...”

“No, I don’t want a sculpture ... well, I do, because who wouldn’t? It was beautiful!” Jenny beamed her million-watt smile at her friend. “Don’t think you’re going to get by not telling me to whom you gave that ... gift, Cathy. You’ve been keeping him a secret for months. Months and months.” Her smile flickered to seriousness. “I let it go, you know, that night after that lunatic tried to ... well, after you got out of the lake ... but I want to know, and you are going to tell me.”

Catherine took a deep breath and willed her hand to sweep the table, a spilled glass surely a diversion, but she did not have to worry. Jenny plunged ahead with her own story, her excitement a current too swift to leave her snagged for long.

Check swing ... she thought, her fingers instead closing around the stem.

“I remember looking through the window and seeing that beautiful mirror propped inside,” Jenny said. “The huge floor mirror, with the layers of framing? Ned’s birthday is coming up and he has this big empty wall in his foyer. He likes antiques, funky things. Now that I think about it ...” She tilted her head in amused regard. “You two have a lot in common. He likes music, poetry, old books ... the quirky and collectible. He has an unusual assortment of ... acquaintances. Hmmmm. Maybe you don’t need to meet him after all.” Jenny laughed, delighted and not at all concerned.

“Tell me more about him, Jen.” Catherine found she was content to listen, thrilled for her friend as Jenny gave voice to sweet dreams.

It wasn’t quite the time to say, mirrors can work miracles.

It wasn't quite the time to say me too.

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“Ned Rutledge. I’m glad you would come tonight. Jenny’s told me so much about you.”

He introduced himself with a warm smile and a firm but restrained greeting, his hand warm and roughened. A working hand, she thought. A thick sweep of dark hair, a wiry energy ... familiar.

“Now that is a lovely accent,” Catherine said, lulled already by the gliding song in his phrasing, the rounded-off rough edges of the Yankee vowel.

“What accent?” he asked innocently. He filled his glass and touched his to hers with a smile, to Jenny’s with a lingering look. “Have you eaten here before, Catherine? It’s not new, but still a bit undiscovered.”

“No, I’ve only passed by. Jenny’s told me she loves it though.” Loves being here with you, I mean.

“I’m willing to make recommendations, but you’ll speak up when I mention the very thing that makes you break out in hives, okay?”

Though his attention was haphazard, drawn from the page of print to Jenny’s face again and again, he conferred with the waiter and then with the sommelier. Soon a roasted beet salad appeared, sprinkled with pistachios and stacked with parmigiano crisps and they shared a plate of oysters nestled in cucumber lime granite. A small bowl of low-country bouillabaisse followed and Ned acknowledged – humbly, when pressed, that yes, the chef had tuned the recipe to his tastes – mussels and shrimp, sausage and and carrots and new potatoes in a spicy broth. She was soon sated, but let herself be convinced to have an egg roll – They're small, Cathy. Skinny little things! – stuffed with greens and salt-cured ham and chicken, with a sauce of peach chutney. And it pained her, but she touched just her spoon-tip to Ned’s dark chocolate sorbet, choosing a dessert of coffee instead.

Jenny had been effusive, telling stories that kept them laughing. Only once did Catherine have to reach for Jenny’s foot with hers under the table, pressing her into a giggling silence. And Ned spoke of their first meeting, how he’d appeared in her office early for their appointment, empty-handed, his assistant home with the flu and all the notes for their first session.

“Five minutes in,” he said, “I asked to use her phone, called a cab. We went out to the Cloisters, spent the afternoon ...”

“Gathering first-hand information,” Jenny broke in, grinning around a spoonful of sorbet.

“Jenny tells me you have quite the specialty,” Catherine said with a pointed look at her friend. “How did you ever decide to get into ...”

“Armor repair?” Ned had laughed again, his easy, rumbling chuckle. “It’s odd, isn’t it? Not exactly a party starter, but if you need your chain maille unraveled, I'm your man." He accepted the cream pitcher from her hand. "It's a simple story, really, pretty standard. Majored in Medieval Studies, went on to grad school. Figured out fast enough that in order to eat regularly, I’d have to find a real job. I worked construction on breaks. But one summer, I landed an internship at the Met, the year they were cleaning and restoring the galleries, and I was handy with steel wool and scraping tools. My dad's a furniture maker. I learned at the foot of a master, I think. Anyway, they asked me back the next two summers. After that I was able to command minimum wage at any museum with a dented breastplate. It turns out that – now I know this is hard to believe – there aren’t too many of us out there who do that sort of thing.”

"That’s probably a sure bet,” Catherine said. “Have you been at the Met since you finished school?”

"It took a while to get on staff, longer than I'd hoped. I've worked here, let's see, almost three years now, but I was out of the country for the first half of that – Scotland, Wales. Germany too. Before, I was at the Walters in Baltimore and then before that, the Higgins Armory Museum - in Worchester, Mass. A stint at the British Museum and a year in Bucharest. The Cloisters restoration will keep me close. Its a six-year project.”

Catherine took a final sip. “It sounds like you’ve been all over the world. Do you think you’ll enjoy staying in one place?”

"I'm liking it much better lately," he said, turning to Jenny. “I found a place in West Village last year. Needs work, a lot of work. And just me ... I kind of rattle around in it.” Jenny blushed, lifted the bread cloth and poked at the bed of crumbs left behind. “I might get a dog,” he continued, a half-grin dimpling one cheek. “A big one. One of those Irish wolfhounds, maybe.”

Jenny’s favorite breed ...

"So ... are you still working on the armor, still putting it all back together?" Under the table, Catherine squeezed Jenny’s hand.

"No, and I miss those days. But I think I know almost every piece there intimately.”

“All 15,000 pieces?”

“It sure feels like it. I’ve moved them all twice. You know the collection, Cathy?”

“She usually gets lost in the Egyptian section,” Jenny said.

“Well, it's time for me to get lost tonight,” Catherine said, pushing back her chair. “Early court tomorrow. Thank you both for a lovely evening.”

“We'll wait outside with you while you get a taxi.” Ned proposed and he started to rise.

Catherine demurred. “No, don’t lose your table. I’m okay, really. It’s easy to get a cab here and I don’t live far.” She leaned in to give Jenny a hug. “Call me.”

“I’ll leave a message,” Jenny said, rolling her eyes.

At the doorway, she looked back at her friends. Ned had moved his chair closer to Jenny's and his hand was closed over hers on the table, but they watched after her as she made her way out. She knew it was just her imagination, but Catherine saw a light around the two of them, a warm ring of promise.

Ned was a mirror to Jenny – intelligent, easy-going, generous and good-humored. He was also vaguely familiar. Catherine pondered the likeness all the way home, her hands clasped in contentment upon her stomach. She couldn’t pin down the connection, but the feeling was a positive one and so she let it drift away, a bobbing thought on a gentle twilight tide.

She did have early court in the morning and she was most decidedly not in the mood for it. At home, ready for bed but too full to lay down, she settled on the couch to go over the paperwork, but the words ran together, thoughts collided, logic toppled like dominoes. In minutes, she tossed it aside, bored and guilty at once. Restless, she put on music, but couldn’t settle on a composer and chose silence instead. And when the silence was too much, she opened her balcony doors though only to the breeze, and she knew she would be alone this night and the next and the next. She wanted the shelter of his arms, wanted the drub of his heart against hers. She surveyed her empty bed, vast now without him.

I know how to do this ...

There was nothing for it, nothing to do but fall against the pale bulwark of her pillows and into dreams.

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Camp was dark and quiet. He was exhausted and it was difficult to find a comfortable position on the ground. He needed rest, as the next day's work threatened to be even more strenuous and he bore the brunt of the heaviest tasks. He tried not to think of her, tried not to feel the sting of longing or to share her restiveness ... and he failed. But after a while, he felt her slip into fancy, and following her, he did not sleep alone.

Click Here for chapter 4



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(1) William Shakespeare. from The Tempest. 1598.
(2) I Carry Your Heart, chapter 7