The Record Set Right: A Short Story from Fall of Poppies
2/5
()
About this ebook
In a short story from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig, a woman discovers it’s never too late to make things right
She's the widow of the Aviator in the Iron Mask-- a British World War I hero whose exploits both on the field and off of it made the papers on two continents. But was their Armistice Day engagement really the romantic fantasy it seemed? A lifetime later, Camilla Frobisher is forced to retrace the steps of her past-- all the way back to November 11, 1918, the day her life changed forever.
Lauren Willig
Lauren Willig is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. An alumna of Yale University, she has a graduate degree in history from Harvard and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She lives in New York City.
Read more from Lauren Willig
The Lost Summers of Newport: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Summer Country: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That Summer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Record Set Right
Related ebooks
What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Nephilem: The Eternal Game, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Firefly of France Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMama's Little Bones and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Lie Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFear of Trust: ODYGYA Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Katy Did Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTumbling Through Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Amethyst Box Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Curse of the Fallen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRefuge: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mystery of Isabella and the String of Beads: A Woman Doctor in WW1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mourning Hours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe House at Riverton: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blind Walls Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElgar's Secret Lover Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Plum Tree Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCatching Lightning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWicked Wood Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Talent for Murder: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Newport's Gilded Age: The Complete Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Celtic Twilight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wicked Within Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Those That Charm The Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sea Raven Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCanary in a Cage: The Smith-Bennett Murder Case Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Hero Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsG'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marge Askinforit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlease Feed the Macaws...I'm Feeling Too Indolent Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
World War II Fiction For You
The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Storyteller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Home Child Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oppermanns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl They Left Behind: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Lost Names Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rose Code: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Auschwitz Lullaby: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Postcard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Guardian of Lies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Baker's Secret: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tobacco Wives: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen of the Tearling: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Sisters: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition, With a New Introduction by the Author Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mitford Affair: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Scorched Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Huntress: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At Night All Blood Is Black: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Library: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the First Circle: The First Uncensored Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Painted Bird Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jane Austen Society: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light After the War: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Island of the World: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret Book of Flora Lea: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Record Set Right
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
The Record Set Right - Lauren Willig
Contents
The Record Set Right
Buy Link to Fall of Poppies
An Excerpt from The Other Daughter
About the Author
Also by Lauren Willig
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
The Record Set Right
Kenya, 1980
AT FIRST, I THINK THAT it must be a joke.
The letter is slipped in among all the others, bills and circulars, an invitation to a friend’s child’s third marriage (on cheaper card stock, this time, than marriages one and two), the chance to claim my prize if only I call the number on the top of the page. The usual debris of the post box fans out across the pale wood of the breakfast table. And there, nestled in the middle, this, this unexpected whisper from a world away.
I would have known the device, if not the handwriting, uncertain now with age, blurred with distance.
I fumble for the glasses that hang on a chain around my neck. The curse of age; my eyes and my mind play tricks on me these days, conjuring ghosts in odd corners, shadows and memories. My glasses confirm what my heart already knew. The letter is from Carrington Cross. Edward’s writing has changed over the course of time—haven’t we all?—but it is still unmistakably his, with those crooked As, and the swoop on the d. It was, at one point, nearly as familiar to me as my own. I saw it on copybooks, on envelopes, on checks, and then, nothing, nothing at all, for the longest time. If we communicated, it was through the mutual weapon of the press, which turns the simplest statements into accusations, speculation into truth.
Even that, even that last, feeble link, had died out long ago; who cared for a scandal of sixty years ago when there were so many new and more interesting ones in the making? The world had changed. The doings of debutantes were no longer front-page news; the old families had ceded place to activists and visionaries—more worthy, if less attractive.
One knows one is truly old when the importunities of the press, clamoring for details, are succeeded by cautious letters from historians. I received those every so often, guarded inquiries into the events of sixty years ago, fumblingly prefaced, in some cases, by would you be so kind,
in others making demands in the interest of Truth and the Historical Record. Some pretended to an interest in the larger context, the Bright Young Things, the Lost Generation, whatever it is they’re calling us these days. I was never particularly bright, nor particularly lost, but Nicholas was both, extravagantly so, and it is for Nicholas’s sake that they sidle around me, pecking and pawing, ever so cautiously working up to what they truly want to know.
My secretary generally sends a form letter, refusing. When I die, they may have my papers. That is enough—and should occupy at least one graduate student for some time.
Yes, the Old World still comes calling from time to time. But never so directly. Never from Carrington.
I fumble with the letter opener, shaped like a dagger, made of wood. I once had a proper metal one, but my granddaughter Annabelle thinks I am less likely to hurt myself this way.
Sensible Annabelle. They say these things skip a generation, or perhaps there is something to the argument that nurture matters more than nature. In that case, though, why did we all turn out so differently? We were, all four of us, raised in the same nursery at Carrington Cross: Daphne, Edward, and I. And, of course, Nicholas. And, yet, of the four of us, no two came out the same.
There we all are, preserved in perpetuity on the lid of the piano that no one ever plays. Children, grandchildren, weddings, engagements, debutantes, and dotages, it’s all there, all lined up on display.
There’s something comforting about caging memory, encasing it in silver frames and setting it out to fade, as if, with that, all the dissensions and scandals, the mistrust and misuse might fade, too, blurring away until only the happy outlines remain.
I even have a picture of Edward on the piano, not Edward as he is now, but Edward as he was then, in 1909. We’re all there, the entire nursery, herded into place to be recorded for posterity. There’s Daphne, age eleven, bouncing with enthusiasm, one curl blown across her face, blurring her features; Edward, seventeen, sturdy in