by Sean Munger
“Do sit down, Mrs. Wicks.”
“It’s Miss Wicks. I never been married.”
“Well, please sit down, Miss Wicks. Would you like some tea?” Anine pulled the bell cord.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Clea Wicks sat bolt upright on one of the Queen Anne chairs, her shoulders not touching the back of the chair. She folded her hands neatly in her lap. After Mrs. Hennessy appeared—“Tea for Miss Wicks and myself, please, Mrs. Hennessy”—Anine opened the envelope and read Wicks’s references. She had worked for a long time in the employ of a family called Carter. Anine noticed the address was on Fifth Avenue. “Miss Wicks is well-behaved, clean and obedient enough for a Negress,” said the letter. “In the 11 years she worked here she never stole anything.” That was all the letter said. Anine sensed there was something the Carters had deliberately reserved.
“This is your only reference?” Anine asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why did you leave the employ of the Carters?”
Wicks shrugged. “They didn’t want me anymore.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
Anine sipped from her cup of tea. We’re not starting out very well. “I’m likely to be doing some entertaining, social entertaining. If you worked on Fifth Avenue I assume you’ve handled that sort of thing before?”
“Yes, ma’am. I know all about dressing society ladies.”
“Can you read and write?”
“Yes, ma’am. I learned when I first came to New York.”
“Do you work well with other servants? We have a cook, Mrs. Hennessey, and my husband is in the process of hiring a valet.” Without thinking about it she added, “They’re white.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Miss Wicks reached for her teacup. After a sip she said, “Can I ask you a question, ma’am?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Where are you from?”
Anine smiled self-consciously. “You noticed my accent. I was born in Sweden. I met my husband when he was there on a diplomatic job. I’ve only been in America a short time.” She sipped tea. “Where are you from, Miss Wicks?”
“Georgia. I got sold to Louisiana”—she pronounced it Loozy-anna—“when I was sixteen. Came to New York after the war ended.”
So she was a slave, Anine realized. This fascinated her. She’d read about American slavery but it seemed so distant in time and experience, the dusty stuff of history books. Now it was suddenly more real to her—as was this woman herself.
“You must have found New York overwhelming at first,” said Anine. “I certainly have.”
“Sweden’s farther from New York than Louisiana,” Wicks replied, in a deadpan tone and with a curiously knowing stare.
After this exchange the conversation abruptly died. Anine guessed that was to be expected. A good ladies’ maid didn’t chat much. And now I have to tell her, she thought. Already she found herself hoping against hope that Miss Wicks wouldn’t decline the job when she heard what had happened to her predecessors. It was only in this thought that Anine realized she’d already decided to offer it to her.
“Miss Wicks, there’s something I must tell you.” Anine set her teacup and saucer down. “Perhaps you’ve heard about this house. The, uh…white ladies already seem to know.”
She looked up. Clea Wicks’s face was as blank and immobile as stone.
“We’ve had two recent tragedies in this house, both involving servants. My husband hired a caretaker to look after the place while we were on our honeymoon in Europe. The gentleman, er…he ended his own life, for reasons we don’t understand. Then, just last week, your predecessor in this position—Mrs. O’Haney—she died in the servant’s room upstairs in the garret. She was old and it was entirely natural. She had only been on the job for a day or so. Naturally these two events have caused…rumors.”
Miss Wicks responded in a curious way. After taking a sip of tea she set down her cup and said, as bluntly as she said everything else, “Are you scared of ghosts, ma’am?”
I like this woman. She’s got—tapperhet. The Swedish word Anine thought of had a shade of meaning that didn’t translate literally into English. It was somewhere between fortitude and bravery, but whatever it was, she recognized it in Wicks.
“No.” She smiled. She reached for her teacup. “If after hearing what I’ve had to say you’d still like to join this house, Miss Wicks, I would be very grateful to have you.”
Wicks calmly finished her tea. Then she stood up, reached under the chair and picked up her carpetbag. “Thank you, ma’am.” Her voice was completely devoid of emotion. “What do you need done first?”
“Unacceptable!” Julian cried. “Completely unacceptable! You will dismiss her immediately! Now! Tonight! She will not spend one night inside this house, is that perfectly clear?”
They were standing in the second parlor, the one across the entryway from Anine’s parlor. In her head she had already begun to call her own room the Green Parlor. The décor there was entirely her own, but Julian wanted to reserve the second parlor for himself. It was more red than green, with burgundy leather chairs, the reddish-brown spines of law tomes and the ginger hair of Thomas Jefferson—Julian’s idol—in the painting above the fireplace. Anine could swear that the gas lights in here glowed slightly red too, at least as compared to elsewhere in the house. This, therefore, was the Red Parlor. Right now its tone seemed to match his emotion.
She stood impassively before him. She’d expected Julian wouldn’t be thrilled at the discovery that she’d employed Miss Wicks when he returned home from the office, but she hadn’t anticipated a full-scale volcanic tantrum. Julian shouted so loud that there was no question everyone in the house—especially Miss Wicks—had heard him. He now stood, jaw quivering with rage, waiting for Anine’s acquiescence.
She didn’t offer it. “I want her. She’s worked on Fifth Avenue for years. She says she knows society ladies. And she speaks plainly. I like that.”
“You like that.” Julian made the same sort of phlegmatic grunting sound with which he had dismissed her report of hearing laughter in the hallway. He paced, hands on his hips, and then finally turned toward the wheeled tea-cart in the corner. Its surface was laid with goblets and decanters of spirits. As he began fixing himself a drink he said, “I don’t give a hoot in hell, Anine, whether she can speak ancient Greek while standing on her head. She’s a Negress. There will be no Negroes or Negresses employed in this house. That is final.”
“What does it matter whether she’s a Negress? Besides, we haven’t many other choices. I told you what Mrs. Hennessey said about women being afraid—”
“Mrs. Hennessey can go to the devil. You deceived me. You changed the notice without my approval and without my knowledge.”
“If I hadn’t I would have no ladies’ maid at all.”
“Then perhaps you should get used to doing things for yourself,” he said, before taking a belt of brandy. Wrinkling his nose, in a sneering tone he added, “But of course, we can’t have that! You’re a little Swedish princess used to having her own way. You wouldn’t know how to wipe your own ass if you didn’t have a maid to do it for you.”
She was stung by his sudden bitterness. “You plan to employ a valet.”
“Yes, I do. A white valet. Just as you are going to have a white maid. Everyone in this goddamned house is going to be white.” With his hand holding the brandy glass he pointed at the door. “Now you go dismiss her right now. Right this minute.”
An acerbic reply swam to Anine’s lips. Your older brother was killed fighting for the Union, she wanted to say. He died for that woman’s freedom, and you won’t even employ her as a maid? But she held her tongue. She unclasped her hands, then walked to the doorway of the Red Parlor—it was closed off by a set of mahogany pocket doors—slid them open and stepped out into the h
all.
She found Miss Wicks standing there, carpetbag in hand. She didn’t look offended or disappointed. Indeed her face was as blank and stony as ever. “I’ll be leaving now,” she said. “You don’t need to pay me for today. Let’s just forget about it.”
Anine stopped in front of her. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d like to change my dress before dinner. There’s a white tea gown in the closet. Would you lay it out for me, please?”
Wicks studied her. Anine felt herself very much on the spot, not a place she found comfortable, but she knew that if she showed the slightest hint that Julian had intimidated her Wicks would never respect her. That was part of it, but there was more. If she goes, it’ll mean another night here in this house, alone with Julian. If she stays at least someone else might hear the creaks in the night.
“Yes, ma’am,” answered the maid. She turned and started up the stairs.
Julian was so furious with her that he slept in one of the guest rooms on the third floor that night. In his rage he grumbled things like this isn’t over and I’ll take care of her in the morning, but Anine wondered if she hadn’t already won the dispute over Clea Wicks. They’d had minor disagreements before but this was the first time she’d driven him to open shouting and recriminations. The unpleasantness of the affair hung over her like a pall as she prepared for bed. Miss Wicks’s presence was comforting. The maid brought a pitcher of water and a glass on a silver tray and laid out Anine’s dress for the morning.
“I’ll be turning out the gas,” said Wicks as she left the bedroom for the last time. A small oil lamp still burned on Anine’s dressing table. “You need anything else, ma’am?”
“No, Miss Wicks. Thank you, and good night.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” This was as close as Wicks got to mentioning the incident. A moment later she turned down the gas and the bedroom became a den of leaping orange shadows.
Anine read Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor for another half hour before she closed the book and reached over to blow out the lamp. It was strange being in the bedroom without Julian. Even though she was glad of Wicks’s presence in the house she felt dreadfully alone. Nighttime brought terrors. When she slept she had the nightmare of Ola; when she was awake she thought she heard the creaking and muffled laughter behind the door. Lately she wasn’t sure which was worse.
Tick…tick…tick…tick…
To keep her mind off the fear she tried to take a trip in her head. She thought of Gamla stan, the old city of Stockholm. It existed as a physical place in her mind and she tried to envision every building as she last saw it. She pictured herself standing at one end of Prästgatan, one of the crooked streets that lurched and wound around between the ancient brick and stucco-faced buildings. She recalled particularly an orange-colored house that she remembered seeing in her early childhood. It was just before the intersection of one of the other streets—she knew all their names, but she couldn’t quite recall which street crossed at the corner with the orange house. There was a tavern just a stone’s throw away, which she had never been in, of course, but—
Creak!
She sat upright in bed. Was that it? Was that the spöke? She was surprised at herself that she’d used this word spöke in her mind. It meant ghost, but when she thought in English about the frightening sounds she usually called it the creak.
She listened for the laughter. Usually it was very soft and sounded like it was moving, often coming from the right-hand end of the hallway. But she didn’t hear it now. The ticking of the clock seemed to drown out every other sound. At last she willed her body to relax and she lay back down.
Back to Gamla stan, she thought. She closed her eyes and envisioned it, the orange house, the tavern beyond—
Creeeeeeak!
This one was much louder. It sounded like it was just behind the door.
She reached for the oil lamp on the bedside table. There was a box of matches there too, but fumbling in the dark she couldn’t find it.
BANG!
A moment later the bedroom door burst open. In the darkness the figure rushing toward her was impossible to see as anything other than a blur. Anine screamed. The terror was seizing her now. Her nightmare had come true. The thing lunging at her was Ola Bergenhjelm, returned from the grave.
“No! Please! Forgive me!” Two powerful hands, feeling more human than the cold grasp of Ola’s vengeful corpse, grabbed her wrists. She realized suddenly the monster was alive and human, not dead and ghoulish, but her fear was just the same. One of the warm crushing hands let go of her wrist. A moment later it began hauling her sleeping-gown over her head. In the dim light from the hallway she saw a sudden glimpse of freckles on the back of the hand clutching at her.
It’s not Ola—it’s Julian!
She was so stunned that she could barely struggle. It did not last long, but it left her with a feeling of violation so powerful and repulsive that she felt physically sick. As Julian got up Anine lay motionless on the bed, arms up over her head, her groin aching.
“Told you it wasn’t over,” he muttered. “You can keep your goddamn nigger maid. You just paid for her.”
He left the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. As he walked down the hallway to the stairs she heard the creak of the floorboards beneath the carpet under his feet.
Chapter Six
The Undisclosed Vendetta
The next day Julian hired a manservant, and Anine wondered if it was retaliation for—or perhaps adaptation to—Miss Wicks. She expected he’d hire a proper-looking man with gray hair and long experience as a gentleman’s valet; if not a Briton, someone who looked like one. But the man who appeared at the house the next afternoon was barely eighteen. He was a tall youth with tousled brown hair falling in gentle curls and his tie was not quite straight. “My name is Bryan Shoop,” said the boy after Miss Wicks showed him into Anine’s Green Parlor. “I’m supposed to start working here today for Mr. Atherton.”
All Anine said was, “Miss Wicks will show you to your room.” She was playing solitaire in the parlor, still dazed from the shock and horror of last night’s events, and didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Shoop went upstairs and began to busy himself brushing and arranging Julian’s suits.
I had no idea it was going to be like this, Anine thought as she thumbed mindlessly through the cards. I had no idea Julian had such savagery in him. She guessed he was sorely provoked by her defiance of his instructions to fire the maid, but she’d never dreamed he would react like that. She did not know what to do. She wanted to kill him, but she engaged in this fantasy only a short while. Trying to get even with him seemed futile and would probably only enrage him more. Perhaps, she thought, she should be quiescent—at least for a time—and hope that this was just a passing storm. She felt it beneath her dignity to simply let it go, but she was painfully aware that she had little practical choice.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
Anine looked up from the cards to see Miss Wicks at the door. “What?”
“There’s a Miss Norton here to see you, ma’am.”
Rachael? Anine was surprised to realize she’d barely thought of her friend since they left Newport. She threw down the cards and stood up. “Show her in. Get us some tea, please.”
Rachael flooded into the room like a burbling stream. She wore a beautiful dress of sky-blue silk; the matching hat included a stuffed blue jay perched on a cloud of lace. “My dear Anine!” she said melodramatically, kissing her on the cheek. “It seems like it’s been ages since I’ve seen you.” Rachael winked at her and the message was clear: her ostentatious entrance and pedantic babble was all for show. She wanted to see the house. And she didn’t want to wait for me to invite her.
Rachael Norton did have an ostensible reason for visiting. “I’ve come to talk about the dinner we’re going to have for you,” she said brightly after Wicks brought the tea. “My mother
and I are already planning it. Do you think you and your husband would be available next Friday evening?”
“Friday—oh, yes. I think so.”
“Perfect. It’s been so dreary around the house. Since we got back from Newport we haven’t done a single thing, not one social event, unless you count Daniel’s oyster lunch for me at Café Brunswick. My, I just realized—I should have invited you!”
Rachael prattled on, spinning great skeins of social small-talk. She seemed entirely different from the plain-speaking, almost mischievous spirit that Anine had encountered in Newport. She did almost all the talking. Anine nodded politely, drank tea and nibbled cakes. She interjected little. Then when the teapot was drained and the plates of confections reduced to sugary crumbs Rachael drew an artificial-sounding sigh and said, “So, won’t you show me around your beautiful house? You know I’ve been dying to see it.”
This was the main event and both women knew it. Anine brought her into the entryway. Rachael’s dark eyes flashed as Anine motioned up toward the top level of the stairs. “I think that’s what you came to see,” she said.
“Fascinating.” Rachael wore a half-smile, and the sudden low, husky tone of her voice signaled an entirely different mood than her airy social chatter. “And the maid? Where did she die?”
“You heard about that?”
“Of course. The day after it happened the maids at our house spoke of almost nothing else. No one knew your lady—what was her name? O’Grady?—no one knew her personally, but word got around quickly enough. Naturally everyone thinks the place is haunted.”
Haunted. Anine had used the Swedish word spöke—ghost—with herself, but she had hesitated even to think of the word hemsökt—haunted. It was like crossing a line in her mind that she wished carefully to remain on one side of. “It’s not haunted. You should tell your maids not to spread such gossip. I had a difficult time finding a maid because of it. Miss Wicks is the only one who would take the job.”