Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,23

Whitney said in surprise, laughing nervously as a concealed door opened up. “I’ve cleaned this room countless times, and I never knew that was there. You’re always so clever, Mr. Pratt.”

Serafina rolled her eyes at Miss Whitney’s silliness. The maid was obviously besotted with this know-it-all footman. Serafina liked Miss Whitney, but she could sure use some help learning how to sniff out a rat. And that was exactly what Serafina thought about shiny-shoes Mr. Pratt.

Mr. Pratt laughed, clearly pleased with Miss Whitney’s reaction to his little trick.

“How do you know about all these secret things?” Miss Whitney asked him. “Do you skulk through the rooms at night when everyone else is sleeping?”

“Oh, I’m full of surprises, Miss Whitney, and not just about a little girl in a yellow dress, you wait and see,” he said. “Come on…”

Yellow dress? How did he know what Clara was wearing when she disappeared? There was something about this footman that Serafina didn’t like. He was too slick, too flirty, too tricky in his hoity-toity black livery, and she didn’t trust him any more than she trusted a rat in the pastry kitchen.

I wouldn’t go in there if I were you! She wanted to shout to Miss Whitney as they passed through the concealed door, but instead she listened to the rat’s footsteps. They were similar to the footsteps she’d heard in the basement the night before, but he and Miss Whitney disappeared into the wall too quickly for her to be sure one way or the other.

As soon as they were gone, she climbed down and checked the area to the right of the fireplace to make sure she’d be able to find the concealed door if she ever needed it. A concealed door could be a very useful thing to a girl of her particular occupation. Measuring three oak panels tall and two oak panels wide, the door was disguised to look exactly like the wall. There was even a framed picture hanging there, a weirdly realistic tintype of a white-haired old man that she guessed was probably Mr. Vanderbilt’s long-dead grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt.

It pained her to think that not only did she not have a grandpa to tell her stories about the old times, she barely even had a pa anymore. He was just someone who found her in a bloody heap and decided to steal goat’s milk to keep her alive in his toolbox. He could be anybody. And she was still mightily perturbed at him for not coming straight with her sooner.

Below the hunting trophies that loomed above, the wall was covered with portraits of Vanderbilts. Mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, brothers and sisters and cousins. She found herself instinctively searching the faces to see if any of them resembled her. Was Clara Brahms alive someplace, wondering if her mother had forgotten her, just as Serafina often wondered about her own? But the difference was that Mrs. Brahms hadn’t forgotten her daughter, would never leave her behind. Clara Brahms’s mother was still looking for her.

Serafina stepped closer to the wall of pictures. The last picture was another depiction of old Cornelius, the patriarch of the grand Vanderbilt family, walking proudly beside one of his iron steam trains, the blur of his motion giving him a ghostlike quality. It put shivers down her spine just looking at it. But the picture had gone a bit catawampus when Mr. Pratt and Miss Whitney went through, so she straightened it out. When she touched the door, it glided open on smooth, well-oiled hinges. She took a deep breath, then slipped through.

To her surprise, the secret door led to the Smoking Room. From there, she found a similar passage into the Gun Room, with its racks of rifles and shotguns protected by panes of glass. Seeing her reflection in the glass, she spit on the back of her hand and wiped her face until she got a few of the larger smudges off her cheeks and chin. Then she smoothed her long brown-streaked hair back behind her ears in a few quick movements. She stood there and just stared at herself, wondering.

If her momma saw her, would she recognize her? Would she hug her and kiss her or would she look the other way and just keep walking? When strangers saw her, what did they think? What did they see, a girl or a creature?

As a group of estate guests walked past the room, she heard them talking in hushed voices that perked up