CHAPTER
3
I’D NEVER BEEN to a country estate before. I didn’t actually know what a country estate was, but I had a vague idea that it was where a duke or an earl would live if we had dukes and earls in America. I figured Mr. Albright was being melodramatic about what would end up being a big house in a nice suburban neighborhood.
I was wrong.
I mean, it was a big house, yes. It was enormous. But it wasn’t in a nice neighborhood—it wasn’t in a neighborhood at all. It was (as one might have guessed) out in the country. About ten minutes before coming into view of the stone pillars at the entrance to the property, we’d passed through a minuscule town with one traffic light, a small row of stores, a used-car lot, a doctor’s office, and a single-story building with a sign reading COPELAND COUNTY SCHOOL. And that was it, as far as the local society went.
I watched helplessly as the signal on my phone weakened, like blood draining from a body, and then disappeared altogether, replaced by two small words: NO SERVICE. It wasn’t that I had any friends to call, but it still felt strangely and almost spookily like being cut off from the world, or going back in time.
The SUV slowed as we approached an elaborately scrolled iron gate centered in a brick wall that went on forever on both sides of us, and Mr. Albright looked over at me from his spot in the driver’s seat. He was in his forties, balding, and judging by the puffiness around his eyes, could have used a good night’s sleep. His gray suit jacket was draped over the seat between us, and his sleeves were rolled up.
“Are you ready?” he asked. “It’s a new beginning for you.”
What was I supposed to say, that I wasn’t ready? I nodded and tried to smile and went back to looking out the window.
Mr. Albright was the Sutton family’s business manager, which meant (he’d told me) that he handled just about everything for them, because when you had that much money, everything was business. He described them as if they were dolls in a collection, with an odd, patronizing note in his voice. But at the same time, he never missed a chance to say that looking out for their family was basically the purpose of his life.
To his credit, despite this great sense of combined ownership and deference he felt toward the Suttons, my going there didn’t seem to worry him. In fact, he acted like it was natural, even charming, that they should take me in.
To me, it seemed kind of random and strange, but what do I know about how super-rich people think?
Here’s what I did know: John Sutton, the patriarch of the family, had gone to law school at Northwestern with my father twenty years ago. One day, they both happened to be swimming laps in the college pool, and John, who hadn’t been feeling well, slipped into unconsciousness in the water. My dad crossed the two lanes between them, pulled him out of the pool, and performed CPR.
“Thus saving his life,” Mr. Albright had said in the garage office at Palmer House, interlacing his fingers as if he were offering a silent prayer of thanks. “And so, when the news reached Mr. Sutton that your family had encountered this great tragedy, he felt compelled to reciprocate in any way he could.”
Your family had encountered this great tragedy. He said the words so impersonally, as if the deaths of my parents and sisters were footnotes in a legal document. Then again, what were his alternatives? What did I want him to do, break down and cry about it?
The iron gates began to open for us. Not wanting to seem overly awestruck, I tried not to crane my neck to see the house. I may have spent six weeks brushing my teeth with someone else’s hair, but I had a smidgen of pride left.
As it turned out, I didn’t need to crane my neck. Copeland Hall, as Mr. Albright called the house, was too big to miss. It was a huge gray building, both long and tall, with boxy outcroppings and peaked roofs and windows, and towerlike projections poking out from various places. Ivy clung to the stone walls, and gnarled trees threw patches of dappled shade against the facade.
When the SUV rounded a corner, I spotted a pair of huge wooden double doors on the side of one of the stone rectangles that bulged off the main structure. The doors faced the side of the property, not the front, as if the house was turning away, hiding its face from visitors.
A two-story garage with spaces for six cars hulked behind the building, and we pulled all the way into one of the bays before the SUV came to a stop.
“Leave your things,” Mr. Albright said, as if my luggage had consisted of five trunks, eight suitcases, three hatboxes, and a birdcage. “I’ll bring them later.”
I looked helplessly at my backpack, not wanting to be parted from it. After only six weeks at Palmer House, I’d begun to develop the anxiety that all the girls shared—the nagging feeling that someone wanted to steal from me. But seeing the lumpy, overstuffed canvas and the broken zipper that only closed halfway, I decided to leave it behind.
“We’ll go in the side entrance,” he said, leading the way toward a single door near the corner of the building.
I scanned the grounds as we approached the house. The lawns were immense and lushly green in the summer sun. It was a pleasant day, not too hot, with a light breeze. Birds twittered lazily from their shaded hiding places and a squirrel hunched under a bush, working hard to tear apart some small fruit or nut.
I live here now, I thought, trying the thought on like a dress.
Shouldn’t a person feel a rush of emotion at the thought of being part of such a grand place? Shouldn’t I feel happy? Or intimidated? Or . . . lucky?
I felt . . . nothing.
Until, that is, I stepped through the door behind Mr. Albright and saw the Suttons standing right there, waiting for us.
Then I felt something: completely embarrassed.
I’d assumed I’d have the chance to wash my face, brush my hair, psych myself up.
But instead, I found myself being inspected by a man and woman standing about ten feet away—a perfectly matched set of well-bred, meticulously presented rich people.
Mrs. Sutton, who was as sleek and slim as a greyhound, wore an ivory sweater and a pair of pale beige pants, with pointed-toe copper-colored flats. Her hair fell in a glossy light brown sheet, just skimming her shoulders. Her watch and earrings were simple gold. Her makeup was subtle and flawless, setting off the glittering brown of her eyes and the pearly white of her teeth. Her smile was warm and welcoming. She was, in a word, tasteful.
Mr. Sutton looked a little less comfortable in his own skin but no less refined. His long-sleeved shirt was blue and crisp, and the hem of his gray trousers broke in just the right spot over his shining loafers. His hair was silvery brown, cropped close to his head, and he wore a smile that had a touch too much tension behind it to be perfectly sincere.
They were elegant in a casual, uncomplicated way—not like showy rich people from the city but like people so rich they don’t have to live in the city. Their money lived there, and they hired Mr. Albright to carry it back and forth for them.