Chapter XXI: Secrets (2)

❦❦❦

In the present, Constance clutched the album tightly to her heart. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she slumped to the floor, a hopeless, sobbing mess. With a trembling hand, she traced the faded picture of Harriet.

“Harriet,” she whispered the name, her heart wrecking with pain. “I’m so sorry, mom was too late. I’m sorry…”

Her eyes fell on another photograph – Harriet wearing a sundress and wide-brimmed Havana hat as she leaned against a guardrail.

The blue ocean, wheeling seagulls, and majestic mountains created a scenic backdrop. She was smiling brilliantly, one hand holding the hat firmly in place while the other prevented her dress from billowing in the ocean breeze.

Constance remembered this day with haunting clarity; it was the last time she ever saw that radiant smile.

From the day Harriet had stormed away, forbidding Constance from ever showing her face again, weeks had stretched into agonizing months.

But Harriet was the child Constance loved most in this world, her beautiful first-born daughter – her womb opener who had blessed her with the most precious gift a mother could receive.

Unable to get close, unable to bridge the chasm that had calcified between them, Constance could only watch from afar whenever rare opportunities arose to catch a glimpse of her daughter’s face.

With a mother’s fierce devotion, she documented those fleeting glimpses, amassing a secret archive of photographs she could pore over in the lonely nights, forever trying to recapture those happier times.

It was on one such occasion, upon returning home from her menial job, that Constance found an unexpected visitor on her doorstep.

“You…” she had gasped, eyes widening at the sight of Monique leaning leisurely against an idling car, two stern-faced bodyguards looming nearby.

Monique’s smile was all teeth as she chuckled, low and predatory. “Are you expecting to see Harriet? Well, she’s not here.”

Though Constance said nothing, she could not disguise the yearning gleam in her eyes, a fact which clearly did not escape Monique’s notice.

“Then how did you find me?” Constance demanded, dread coiling like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach.

Had their closely guarded secret finally been uncovered after all these years? A thousand frantic thoughts raced through her mind. If Monique and her elite circle knew the truth about Constance’s connection to Harriet – that she was not merely a former maid, but Harriet’s biological mother who had been forced to give her up at birth – what would happen next?

As much as Constance yearned to be reunited with her firstborn daughter, to finally embrace the child she had been forced to surrender to an infertile benefactress all those decades ago, she recoiled from the thought of Harriet’s life being disrupted, her reputation sullied by the stain of illegitimacy in their rarified social circles.

When the Vanderbilt matriarch could not conceive after years of trying, she had turned to Constance, then just a naive young maid, to provide her with the infant she so desperately craved. Constance had been promised a permanent place in the household staff to remain near her child, as well as a modest stipend to see her through life’s difficulties. But those assurances proved hollow after she had fulfilled her obligations.

Cast out into the cold with little more than a token payoff, Constance had watched from the outside as her baby – her precious womb-opener – grew up wanting for nothing amid opulent privilege, while her birth mother struggled in poverty mere miles away. The vast chasms of class and wealth may as well have been continents separating them.

But Constance had never stopped loving Harriet, never stopped dreaming of the day when they might be reunited as mother and daughter, the way nature had intended. She had clung to that desperate hope through years of deprivation and heartbreak, her fixation gradually metastasizing into an all-consuming obsession that consumed her waking hours.

And now here was Monique, Harriet’s dearest friend and daughter of another powerful family dynasty, casually implying she knew about Constance’s clandestine activities – her pathetic, furtive attempts to remain connected to the child who had been so cruelly torn from her arms.

Had the truth about Harriet’s origins been uncovered as well? The thought sparked an icy furor more intense than Constance could ever recall feeling.

“You…you broke into my house!” she sputtered, stalling for time as her mind whirled. “You had no right, that’s trespassing!”

Monique seemed utterly unconcerned by the accusation, already flipping disdainfully through the photographs. “Your photography skills are pretty good, for a stalker,” she said with an edge of dark amusement. “So tell me, why have you been stalking us?”

Us – that one small word, the casual lumping of Harriet in with Monique and her crew, raised Constance’s hackles. These moneyed elites didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as her daughter! Before she could formulate a response, rage and shame overwhelmed her in equal measure until she crumpled to her knees in supplication.

“I…I meant no harm, I promise,” Constance whispered, pleading with every fiber of her being for Monique to believe her words. “I won’t do this again.”

The younger woman’s expression remained inscrutable as she studied Constance through narrowed eyes. “Why do I not believe that?” She let the loaded question hang in the air, an unmistakable warning.

Constance kept her head bowed, utterly cowed by the implication that her fragile secret could be shattered at any moment, the tenuous remnants of her dignity stripped away in an instant. She could only pray that Monique remained ignorant of the full truth about her connection to Harriet.

If that came to light, the repercussions could prove utterly ruinous, not just for herself, but for the daughter she loved beyond all reason.

Head bowed in shame, Constance offered no response.

“Why are you so obsessed with Harriet?” Monique demanded, waving the thick stack of photos. “There must be over a thousand photos here. What gives?”

Hesitating, Constance finally whispered, “She…she just has a special place in my heart.”

“Is that so?” Monique mused. “Anyway, I came to offer you a proposition. Next week is my birthday…”

Constance stared at her, scarcely daring to breathe. Was Monique actually inviting her?

“We can never have too many maids, after all.”

The implication struck Constance like a blow, and she dropped her head, awash in humiliation.

“Go to the agency and give them your details,” Monique continued, uncaring. “If you do a good job, I might consider keeping you around.”

“Really?” Constance could scarcely believe it, equal parts elated and shamed by the opportunity.

“I don’t know what the deal is between you two,” Monique said, handing back the photos, “but I can tell you mean her harm. No need to be stalking us though, it’s creepy.”

As the sleek car pulled away, Constance found herself giddy with gratitude, vowing to herself that she would not squander this chance.

Little did she know it would be this seemingly innocuous encounter, scorched into her memory like a brand, that would ultimately become the catalyst transforming the meek Constance into a woman consumed by bitterness and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance.

❦❦❦