Richard pushed through the guests.
“Turn the music off.”
The quartet stopped mid-song.
Vanessa still held the hose.
“Dad, you know her?”
Richard ignored her.
He removed his jacket and placed it around Eleanor's shoulders.
Eleanor did not thank him.
She looked down at the soaked canvas bag.
“You always were late when it mattered.”
Richard's face tightened.
Adrian quietly took the hose from Vanessa's hand.
Richard turned toward his daughter.
“Go inside.”
“What?”
“Now.”
Vanessa's embarrassment became anger.
“You're ordering me out of my own engagement party because of her?”
Eleanor looked at Vanessa's diamond ring.
“Engagement.”
Something about the word made her sad.
Vanessa noticed.
“Who are you?”
Richard answered before Eleanor could.
“She is no one you need to concern yourself with.”
Eleanor laughed softly.
“Still doing that.”
“Eleanor.”
“Still deciding which truths your family is allowed to hear.”
The guests had stopped pretending not to listen.
Richard asked his brother, Thomas, to clear the garden.
Vanessa refused to move.
“If she's nobody, why are you shaking?”
Richard looked at his hand.
It was trembling.
Eleanor opened her canvas bag.
Vanessa instinctively stepped back, expecting some dramatic demand for money.
Instead Eleanor removed a small wooden box.
Its brass clasp was dark with age.
She held it toward Richard.
“I promised your mother I would bring this back when your daughter was old enough to understand it.”
Vanessa stared at the box.
“My grandmother?”
Richard went pale.
“You spoke to my mother?”
“Every week until she died.”
Richard's voice dropped.
“You were told never to contact this family again.”
“No. I was paid never to contact this family again.”
The crowd went silent.
Vanessa looked at her father.
“Paid by who?”
Richard did not answer.
Eleanor did.
“Your grandfather.”
Vanessa laughed in disbelief.
“My grandfather has been dead for twenty years.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor held the box tighter.
“And he died believing he'd bought my silence.”
Richard stepped closer.
“What is in that box?”
Eleanor looked directly at Vanessa.
“Proof that half of everything she thinks belongs to this family never belonged to them at all.”