“Oh, Alexander,” she whispered. “I am so glad. I am so very glad for them.”
47
Annis
Annis, like Harriet, felt in need of a bath the moment she
reached home. She dashed up the stairs without seeing anyone and ran her own bath. She stripped off her clothes and piled them on the floor. As she sank into the scented, soapy water, it occurred to her that when Velma went off to the Dakota, there would be no one to pick up her things, to clean them, to put them away when she tossed them about. Perhaps having a lady’s maid wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
She scrubbed herself from head to toe, even washing her hair, though it would take hours to dry. When she emerged from her bathroom, she found a dejected Velma gathering up her dropped shirtwaist and skirt and lingerie and stuffing them into a laundry bag.
Velma straightened, and it was obvious from her swollen eyelids and reddened cheeks that she had been crying.
“Velma,” Annis said, as gently as she could. “It’s going to be all right.”
Velma shook her head. “It ain’t. Mrs. Frances all alone in that place? Not all right.”
“I have very good news about that, Velma, but it means a big change for you. A different opportunity. You can say no if you wish, and no one would hold it against you.”
Velma stood dumbly, holding the laundry bag, gazing at her without understanding.
“Mrs. Frances is out of the asylum. She’s safe with my aunt Harriet. You will soon meet my aunt, Miss Harriet Bishop.”
Velma nodded, her lips a little apart, her dull eyes beginning to brighten. “Miss Harriet got Mrs. Frances?”
“Yes. At the Dakota, across from Central Park. We’re hoping you will go to be Mrs. Frances’s maid. Well, her nurse. She’s no better than she was, I’m afraid.”
Velma’s eyes brightened more. “That’s my job now? At Miss Harriet’s?”
“If you’re willing to take it.”
Velma nodded, and more tears filled her eyes, tears of relief and hope. Annis felt a twist of empathy in her breast over Velma’s misery and constant anxiety. She said as gently as she knew how, “Go and pack your things, then. They’re expecting you tonight.”
Annis had only just finished dressing and toweling her damp hair when Velma returned. Annis exclaimed aloud over her transformed appearance. The swollen eyelids were gone, and she had washed away the blotches of tears on her cheeks. She was wearing her best shirtwaist and newest skirt. She had brushed her thin hair into a passable chignon and perched her flat straw hat on top. She held a cardboard valise in one hand and her short woolen coat in another.
Annis said, “You look—why, Velma, you look very nice.”
“The Dakota,” Velma said, as if that explained the effort she had made.
“Yes, indeed. I hope you’ll like it there.”
They were already downstairs, with Robbie waiting in the drive, when Velma said, “Oh! I forgot!” She dropped her valise and her coat on the floor and turned to run, rather clumsily, back upstairs. When she returned she was carrying the cut-glass swan, carefully cupped in her hands.
Annis picked up the maid’s valise and coat and carried them for her. She assisted Velma up into the carriage and saw her safely settled, her most precious possession cradled in her lap.
“Robbie,” Annis said as he picked up the reins. “Don’t let that doorman send you down to the servants’ level. Tell him Velma is to go right up the stairs, just as a lady’s maid does.”
Robbie grinned. “Yes, Miss Annis.” He touched his cap and set off for the Dakota. Annis stood in the gravel drive, waving farewell to her former maid.
Annis, hairbrush in her hand, knelt before a lively fire in the small parlor to dry her hair. James found her there and held out his hand for the brush. “Allow me,” he said.
Startled, Annis gave him the hairbrush and bent her head. With patient hands he untangled the strands of damp hair and began to brush. It was an oddly intimate experience, the heat of the fire against her scalp, the firm, slow strokes of the hairbrush, the occasional grazing of her cheek by James’s long fingers. Annis’s breathing quickened, and her heart beat a little faster at his nearness.
When his elbow grazed her shoulder, she had a sudden flash of that awful night in her bedroom in Rosefield Hall, when he was under the influence of the maleficia. She caught a horrified breath at