Serafina and the Black Cloak

by Robert Beatty

  It’s just a glove, you silly fool, she thought, smiling at her scaredy-cat thoughts, but when she picked it up, her mouth curled in disgust. Inside the glove there were bloody patches of skin.

  It was so disgusting, far worse than any rat carcass she’d ever found, but she forced herself to examine it more closely. The glove was made out of a fine, thin, black satin material. The flakes and patches of skin inside appeared as if they had sloughed off the hand that had last worn the glove. The skin had black spots and gray hairs. It was as if the owner of the glove hadn’t just been old, but aging rapidly, almost disintegrating. Her muscles twitched as she remembered fighting for her life. She had bitten and clawed in a wild frenzy. The glove must have fallen from his belt or pocket, for she remembered that his hands had been bare and bloody when she fought him.

  Men’s gloves were as common as top hats and canes, so it wasn’t a very good clue. It didn’t provide her evidence to show to the young master. But it did stiffen the idea that whoever or whatever the Man in the Black Cloak was, there was something wrong with him.

  Anxious to get out of the damp and more determined than ever to find the young master, she scampered her way up to the main level of the basement.

  Many of the rooms on this level had windows at the tops of the walls. Outside, she could see servants and guests searching the gardens, the Rambles maze, and the many footpaths. She couldn’t help but hope to see Braeden Vanderbilt among them.

  She wondered if she could think of Braeden as her friend now, or if she was fooling herself. The God’s honest truth was that she didn’t even know what a friend was, other than what she’d read in books. If you meet someone face-to-face and they don’t hiss at you and bite you, does that mean you’re friends? But when she thought about it a little more, she remembered that she did in fact nearly hiss at the young master when they first met, so that wasn’t ideal. Maybe they weren’t friends at all. Maybe he thought she was nothing but a lowly dirt-scraper from the basement and she didn’t warrant a second thought. She probably should have told him right off that she was the C.R.C. That would have been a lot more impressive. As it was, she just wasn’t sure what sort of impression she’d made, except that she was dirty, rude, unkempt, and had bad hair.

  She darted up the stairs to the first floor. She took advantage of the chaos of the search to scurry unseen from one hiding spot to another. She moved silently, padding swiftly on soft feet. The adults spoke so loudly and made such a galumphing noise when they stomped all over the place that they were easy to avoid.

  She dashed over to the Winter Garden, where she hid beneath the fronds of the tropical plants.

  As Mrs. Vanderbilt and two servants hurried down the corridor, Serafina scooted into the Billiard Room and made a narrow escape. She thought that even her rodent enemies would have been impressed by her quickness of foot on that particular maneuver.

  Walled in rich oak paneling and appointed with soft leather chairs, the Billiard Room smelled of cigar smoke. Deep-hued Oriental carpets covered the floor. Black wrought-iron lamp fixtures hung down from the ceiling over the game tables. Animal heads and hunting trophies lined the walls. She liked those. The trophies on the walls reminded her of the rats she’d killed and laid at her pa’s feet. So she and the Vanderbilts had that much in common. On the other hand, she had stopped doing that when she realized that it was the catching she liked more than the killing.

  Just as she was about to leave the room, a footman came in with one of the maids. Serafina quickly dove beneath the billiard table.

  “Maybe she’s been giving us the slip at every turn, Miss Whitney,” the footman said, leaning down to look under the billiard table just as Serafina darted behind the sofa.

  “She could be just about anywhere, Mr. Pratt,” Miss Whitney agreed, looking behind the sofa just as Serafina hid in the green velvet curtains that adorned the windows.

  “Do you know if anyone has checked the pipe organ?” Mr. Pratt asked. “There’s a secret room back there.”

  “The girl is a pianist, so she might be curious about the organ,” Miss Whitney agreed.

  Taking a quick breath and using the curtain for cover, Serafina climbed up the window stile lickety-split, then wedged herself into the uppermost corner of the window. She had just enough time to see that Mr. Pratt was wearing white gloves, a black tie, and a black-and-white footman’s livery, but she took special notice of his black patent-leather dress shoes.

  “What do you mean, she’s a pianist?” Mr. Pratt asked.

  “Tilly, on the third floor, told me the girl’s some sort of musical prodigy, gives piano concerts all over the country,” Miss Whitney said, as she ran her hands through the curtains where Serafina had just been hiding.

  Serafina held her breath and stayed very still. Miss Whitney was so close to her now that she could smell her sweet lavender-and-rose perfume. All Miss Whitney had to do was pull back the curtain and look up, and she’d see Serafina clinging there with a Cheshire smile. Despite her fear of being seen, Serafina couldn’t resist noticing the details of the maid’s outfit. She loved the pretty pink uniform with its white collar and cuffs, which the maids wore in the morning before changing into their more formal black-and-white uniforms in the afternoon.

  “Come on. There’s no one in here,” Mr. Pratt said. “We’ll check the pipe organ.”

  Serafina breathed a sigh of relief as Miss Whitney walked to the other side of the room.

  Mr. Pratt pushed the oak-paneled wall just to the right of the fireplace.

  “Oh my!” Miss 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 her ears.

  “I’m telling you it’s true!” a young man whispered.

  “I heard about it, too,” whispered another. “My grandmama told me that there’s an old cemetery out there with hundreds of gravestones, but the bodies are missing!”

  “I heard there’s an old village,” said a third voice. “It’s all overgrown and taken back by the forest, like everyone who lived there abandoned their houses.”

  Serafina had heard the tall tales passed around among the kitchen folk at night, but she’d never been too sure whether she was supposed to believe them or not.

  Every place she went in the house that day, she overheard conversations—gentlemen discussing whether detectives should be called in to investigate the missing child; servants trading stories about suspicious guests; and parents arguing about the best way to protect their sons and daughters from getting lost in the giant house without being rude to the Vanderbilts. And now they were talking about the old cemetery in the woods.

  She kept thinking about the Man in the Black Cloak. If he was one of these people, he could be lurking in any corridor or room. How do you tell a friend from an enemy just by looking at him?

  It seemed like the farther she went, the more questions she had. The only thing certain so far was that the search continued and they still hadn’t found Clara Brahms. Either alive or dead.

  Then she had an idea. If the Man in the Black Cloak was some sort of wraith that drifted out of the forest at night, or if he conjured himself out of the ether in the basement, then she probably wouldn’t find very much evidence of him in the upper floors of the house. But if the Man in the Black Cloak was at least partially mortal and resided at Biltmore, then he’d have to stash his cloak someplace when he wasn’t wearing it. If she could find the cloak, then maybe she could find the man.

  The closets and storerooms throughout the house were some of her favorite hiding spots, so she knew them well. When ladies and gentlemen came to Biltmore, they usually exited from their carriages at the front door. But in bad weather, they used the covered porte cochere at the north end of the house, near the stables. Always just out of sight, darting and dodging, creeping and crawling, she made her way there.

  The coatroom was dark and cramped, which suited her just fine. She loved closets. As she pushed her way through the thick forest of coats, cloaks, stoles, and capes, she searched the hangers one by one, looking for a long black satin cloak. When she reached the back wall of the coatroom without finding it, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment.

  As she crept out of the coatroom, she realized that she’d have to go to Braeden without any proof, but the truth was that she hadn’t been able to find him, either.

  You’ve got to think, girl, she heard her pa telling her in the tone he used when she couldn’t reckon one of her lessons. Use what you know, and think it through.

  An idea came to her. Knowing what she did about Braeden Vanderbilt, he’d either be with his dog or his horse or both. He loved horses. It would be the first thing he thought of. He’d go to the stables to help the stablemen look for Clara Brahms there. Or maybe he’d search the grounds on horseback. Either way, the stables seemed like the place to go.

  The most direct path was through the porte cochere. There were quite a few people coming and going through this busy area, but she hoped that if anyone spotted her, they’d assume she was a scullery maid or a kindling girl going about her chores.

  She took a deep breath and ran down the steps toward the archway that led to the stables. She moved fast. She thought she was going to make it. But just as she looked behind her to make sure no one was following her, she collided with a great smash into a large man in front of her. It knocked the wind out of her and nearly knocked her off her feet, but the man grabbed her by the shoulders and held her up with a brutal grip.

  Her captor wore a full-length black rain cloak even though it wasn’t raining. He had a peculiar pointed beard, crooked teeth, and an ugly, pockmarked face. She hadn’t seen the face of the Man in the Black Cloak, but this is what she’d imagined he’d look like.

  “What you lookin’ at?” he demanded. “Who is you, anyway?”

  “I ain’t nobody!” she spat defiantly, trying desperately to tear herself free and run, but the man’s hands clamped her so tight that she couldn’t escape. Now it was her turn to be the biting rat with its neck squeezed between finger and thumb. She noticed that he was standing in front of the open door of an awaiting carriage.

  “You the new pig girl?” the man demanded. “What you doin’ up ’ere?” He tightened his grip so viciously on her arms that she let out a squeal of pain. “I said, what’s your name, ya little scamp?”

  “None of your business!” she said as she kicked and fought any way she could.

  The man had a terrible smell, like he needed a bath really, really bad, and his breath stank with the huge wad of putrefied chewing tobacco that bulged in his cheek.

  “Tell me your name, or I’m gonna shake ya,” the man said even as he shook her. He shook her so violently that she couldn’t catch her breath or get her feet on the ground. He just kept shaking her.

  “Mr. Crankshod,” a firm, authoritative voice said from behind her. It wasn’t just a name. It was a command.

  Startled, the ugly man stopped shaking her. He set her on her feet and began to smooth her hair, pretending that he had actually been taking care of her all along.

  Gasping for breath, she turned to look at who had spoken.

  There stood Braeden Vanderbilt at the top of the steps.

  Serafina’s heart sprang. Despite the terrible situation he’d caught her in and the angry expression on his face, she was glad to see Braeden.

  The crab-crankedy Mr. Crankshod, however, was far less pleased. “Young Master Vanderbilt,” he grumbled in surprise as he bowed, wiped the tobacco spittle from his lip, and stood at attention. “I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t see you there. Your coach is ready, sir.”

  Braeden looked at them both without speaking. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased by what he’d just seen. The boy’s Doberman appeared ready to attack whichever of them his master told him to, and Serafina hoped that it was going to be the sputum-faced Mr. Crankshod rather than her.

  Braeden stared at Mr. Crankshod, then slowly moved his eyes to her. Her mind whirled with potential
cover stories. He had stopped the mountainous brute from shaking the living daylights out of her, but what could she say to explain her presence here?

  “I’m the new shoeshine girl,” she said, stepping forward. “Your aunt asked me to make sure your boots were well shined for your trip, sir, spit and polished good, sir. That’s what she said, all right, spit and polished good.”

  “No, no, no!” Mr. Crankshod shouted, knowing it was a ruse. “What’s this, now, ya little beggar? You ain’t no shoeshine girl! Who is ya? Where’d ya come from?”

  But a smile of delicious conspiracy formed at the corner of Braeden’s mouth. “Ah, yes, Aunt Edith did mention something about getting my boots shined. I had quite forgotten,” he said, exaggerating the aristocratic air in his voice. Then he looked at her sharply and his eyebrows furrowed into a frown. “I’m on my way to the Vances’, and I’m running late. I don’t have time to wait on you, so you’ll just have to come with me and do it in the carriage on the way.”

  Serafina felt the blood rush to her face. Was he serious? She couldn’t go in a carriage with him! Her pa would kill her. And what was she gonna do all cooped up in there anyway, getting dragged around in a box by a bunch of four-legged black hoof-stompers?

  “Well, come along, let’s be quick about it,” Braeden said, his voice filled with the impatience of a lordly gentleman as he gestured toward the carriage door.

  She had never been in a carriage in her life. She didn’t even know how to get in one or what to do once she did.

  The ill-tempered, rat-faced Mr. Crankshod had no choice but to obey the young master’s commands. He shoved Serafina toward the door, and she suddenly found herself in the dimly lit interior of the Vanderbilt carriage. As she crouched uncertainly on the floor, she could not help but marvel at the carriage’s luxuriously appointed finery with its hand-carved woodwork, brass fixtures, beveled-glass windows, and plush, paisley, tufted seats.