The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  But James’s figure, crude though it was—somehow she didn’t want to see it ruined.

  She convinced herself Aunt Harriet had forgotten about the manikins. As time passed, she was more and more reluctant to admit to her great-aunt—to confess, rather—that she still had them in her keeping. The secret nagged at her, like a pebble in her shoe that she was trying to ignore. It was all tangled up with her feelings for James, her nostalgia for Seabeck and Rosefield Hall and the Andalusians. She even missed Lady Eleanor’s cool glance and efficient ways. All of these thoughts left her confused. Unfamiliar emotions swept over her at the oddest times so that she felt by turns weepy and exhilarated, thrilled by her work with Harriet but lonely in her bed at night.

  In early November, as the first chill of winter crept through Central Park and caused Robbie to light the oil stove in the stables, Annis turned eighteen. Mrs. King baked an enormous cake, enough for all the staff to share. Robbie gave her a lovely new bridle for Bits, one he had been laboring over in secret for months. She hugged him, making him blush and turn his cap in his hands. Her father gave her a gold bracelet and the papers that told her she had come into a small inheritance left by her mother. Harriet gave her a beautiful book of herbs, so large and heavy she almost couldn’t carry it home.

  She didn’t expect anything from Frances, of course, nor did she receive anything.

  Frances disappeared that very day.

  Annis had insisted Velma leave Frances for a time to join the kitchen staff for a piece of birthday cake. Velma resisted at first, but Annis could see how gratified she was at her welcome in the kitchen. The maids had hardly seen her since her return from England. Velma blushed and gave the maids a shy wave, and Mrs. King cut her a generous slice of cake with a dollop of thick cream.

  When she was finished, Mrs. King cut a tiny slice of cake for Frances. “Mrs. Frances won’t eat it, probably,” Velma said.

  “We can only try,” Mrs. King said. Velma took the plate, with a sliver of cake arranged on a doily, and carried it back upstairs.

  Moments later Velma’s cries of alarm carried down the staircase and into the dining room where Annis and her father sat over their coffee. George didn’t move, but dropped his chin onto his chest as if that would shut out Velma’s shrieks.

  Annis jumped up, letting her napkin slip to the floor, and dashed toward the stairs. She found Velma on the landing, tears streaming down her red cheeks. “She ain’t there, miss, she ain’t anywhere!”

  Annis took the stairs two at a time. On the landing she took Velma’s arm and steered her up the second flight. As they walked she said, “Now, Velma, calm down. Don’t cry anymore. Frances must have wandered off. I’ll help you look.”

  “She ain’t never done that, miss, not in all this time!”

  “I know. Perhaps she’s feeling better?”

  Even Velma knew better than that, and didn’t bother answering. Together they went to Frances’s bedroom, checked her dressing room, looked in her bathroom. They peered into all the other bedrooms, George’s, Annis’s, where Annis surreptitiously checked that the manikins were where she had left them. They climbed the back staircase to look in the servants’ rooms. Annis was startled at how small and cold these were. She didn’t think she had ever been in one of them before, and their paucity of comforts bothered her.

  She and Velma flew back down the stairs to the kitchen, the pantry, the storeroom, both parlors and the breakfast room, even the little room beside the servants’ entrance at the back of the house where coats and umbrellas were hung and a rack held muddy boots awaiting cleaning. There was no sign of Frances.

  Annis escorted a still-weepy Velma back to the kitchen, where she turned her over to Mrs. King for a cup of tea. “We’ll find her, Velma,” Annis said. “Stop crying. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I’ve got Velma, Miss Annis,” Mrs. King said. “I’ve sent Robbie and Freddie out to look in the stables and the garden shed, just in case. You go tell your father what’s happened.”

  It was odd, Annis thought, as she started back to the dining room, that her father had stayed where he was, as if he couldn’t hear the uproar around the house, the clatter of feet, the calling voices, the slamming of doors. She half expected to see he had finally left the table to join the search.

  He hadn’t. He sat in his heavy armchair, staring at his coffee as it grew cold. He hadn’t touched the slice of cake resting in front of him.

  “Papa?” Annis said uneasily. Instinctively she put her hand to her collar, where the moonstone nestled against her throat. Her father looked up at her, his eyes heavy with misery. With guilt. The moonstone throbbed under her fingers, and she knew. Suddenly, without the slightest doubt, she knew.

  “Papa! You—you sent her away!”

  “I had the doctor come for her.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “She’s in a better place. A place she can be cared for.”

  “What place?”

  “I don’t see what difference it makes, Annis. She won’t notice anyway.”

  “Papa—” Annis gasped as the moonstone vibrated against her skin and a knowledge was borne in her mind, knowledge she didn’t want and couldn’t accept. “Papa, I can’t believe—you sent her there?”

  He blinked at the force of her voice. “How could you possibly know where I sent her?”

  Annis ignored the question. Her heart began to pound, and her throat constricted. “That place! It’s horrible. The way they treat people—I can’t believe you would be so cruel!”

  “She’s lost her mind,” he said, his voice like gravel.

  “You don’t know that!”

  “I don’t—I can’t stand looking at her like that.”

  “You never see her as it is!”

  He shoved himself to his feet and thundered, “But I know she’s there! Drooling, mindless—it’s horrible! I’m not having that in my house!”

  He spun away from her and stamped toward the door. Mrs. King was in the doorway, and in his haste George stepped on the cook’s trailing hem, knocking her off balance so she stumbled. Annis leaped to steady her before she fell.

  Mrs. King, wide-eyed and wordless, stared after her employer. Annis patted her shoulder, but she had no words, either. She knew her father could be ruthless in business. She knew any affection between him and his second wife had died long ago. But this—this was too horrible to contemplate. Pretty Frances, who loved nice clothes and hairstyles and beautiful jewelry—poor, ill Frances, in that place!

  Whatever she had done, she didn’t deserve this.

  Mrs. King recovered herself enough to croak, “Miss Annis, what’s happened? Do you know where Mrs. Frances is?”

  “I do, Mrs. King,” Annis said, her voice barely steadier than Mrs. King’s. “I’m sorry to say I do. Papa sent her to Blackwell’s Island. To the asylum.”

  “Oh no! Surely he did not,” Mrs. King protested. “Did he tell you that?”

  Annis shook her head. “No. But I know.”

  Mrs. King’s answer was interrupted by the clang of the iron knocker at the front door. She threw up her hands in frustration and went to answer it. Annis, at a loss for what to do next, followed her.

  On the doorstep, with his manservant waiting beside a hired carriage in the drive, stood James, Marquess of Rosefield. He was in the act of bowing slightly to Mrs. King when he caught sight of Annis, and she of him.

  “Miss Allington,” he said, snatching off his top hat and bowing from the waist. “I do hope my arrival isn’t spoiling your birthday party.”

  41

  James

  His timing could not have been worse, but he didn’t realize that straightaway. At first he simply thought he had made a ghastly mistake in coming.

  There seemed to be some sort of disruption in the house. He heard pounding feet, raised voices, a door slamming. Worse, behind the slender woman in a cook’s apron who had opened the door, Annis looked as if she had suffered a shock. Her face was white exce
pt for two scarlet spots on her cheeks. Her mouth opened when she saw him, but it seemed she couldn’t speak.

  It was his worst fear. Annis was not pleased to see him, not at all happy about his unannounced arrival.

  He stood on the step, feeling tall and awkward and out of place. Perry, behind him, gave a choked sound of embarrassment. The woman in the apron stared up at him in dismay as Annis closed her mouth, opened it again, closed it again. For long, miserable seconds no one moved.

  Finally James spoke in a hollow voice. “It seems I have misjudged my moment.”

  At that the tableau burst apart like an ice jam cracking into pieces. Annis cried, “Oh, James, no, not at all! I am so glad to see you! So very glad!”

  The woman in the apron stood back, holding the door wide and saying, “Do come in, sir, come in out of the cold. Your man, too.”

  Perry breathed a sigh of relief so gusty James thought it might penetrate right into the house.

  James himself, with his hat in his hand, took the step over the sill. Annis seized his free hand in both of hers and drew him into an elegant, high-ceilinged foyer. He took in the polish of the tiled floor and the brilliance of the large electrified chandelier overhead as Annis said, “Mrs. King, can you send for Robbie? He’ll see to the carriage and horse.”

  Perry, coming in behind James, said, “It’s only hired.”

  “Oh yes, but the horse will need a bit of mash and some water. And Mrs. King, perhaps the driver could use a cup of something.”

  This set the aproned woman scurrying off. The slamming of doors and pounding of feet had ceased, leaving only the clink of dishes being moved from a room somewhere beyond the staircase. Annis said, “Perry, it’s good to see you again. Do bring in the valises, and pull the door closed, could you? It’s icy out tonight.”

  Perry lifted the valises and carried them inside, then turned back to close the door against the night air. James looked around him, trying to regain his balance after the nasty moment on the doorstep. For an awful few seconds he had thought he and Perry might need to turn right around and go back to the ship’s terminal. Now he was being greeted with all the enthusiasm a welcome guest might expect. It was disorienting.

  Annis had still not released his gloved hand. He looked down at her long, strong fingers gripping his, and the wave of relief that swept over him was almost more bewildering than the strangeness upon which the front door of Allington House had opened. He struggled to find words that would not sound foolish, and could think only of, “Thank you for letting us in.”

  Her color was returning, the scarlet spots in her cheeks subsiding. “Oh, James! There was never any doubt of your coming in, but—oh, I’m so glad you’ve come, and it’s the perfect time, the most perfect time!”

  For Annis, this was indeed effusive. He turned his hand to catch hers and carry it to his lips. The gesture felt completely natural. “Have you had a happy birthday? A good day?”

  “It was, until—until just before you arrived. I’ll explain. It’s all a terrible mess.” She reached for a bell that rested on a side table and rang it. “Mrs. King will get someone to help Perry with the bags. There’s a guest room just to the left at the top of the stairs. Perry, you may have to share a room. I do hope you won’t mind.”

  James was impressed by the efficiency with which Annis directed the servants. In no time someone had taken his hat and coat and gloves. Annis led him to a charming small parlor, and Mrs. King, the aproned woman, came in with a tray of coffee and what seemed to be the remains of a birthday cake. Annis stirred up the fire herself and added a small pine log, which smelled wonderful as it caught and began to burn. She pointed James to a well-cushioned armchair, and she pulled up a hassock near it for herself.

  Perched there, her linked hands on one knee, she said, “Is coffee and cake enough? Have you had supper?”

  “Coffee and cake is lovely,” he said. “I’m delighted to share in your celebration.”

  She wrinkled her nose, making the freckles dance. “The celebration rather fell apart, I’m afraid.”

  “So I gather. I do hope everyone is well.”

  “Everyone except Frances.”

  “Ah. My mother told me there was no improvement in her condition.”

  “What’s happened is ugly, James. Horrible. I’m ashamed to tell you.”

  She waited until he had sipped some warming coffee and taken a taste of Mrs. King’s confection. As she told her story, his appetite disappeared, and he laid down his fork. He hadn’t been susceptible to Mrs. Allington’s charms, but the thought of that lively woman consigned to a madhouse turned his stomach.

  It developed, also, that the eruption between Annis and her father meant he would not meet George Allington that night. She explained that her father had stormed out of the house and would probably sleep at his factory.

  James said uncomfortably, “Perhaps, if your father is not here, it’s not appropriate that you invite me to stay.”

  Her expression hardened, and she thrust out her chin. “I don’t give a fig for ‘appropriate,’ James, as I think you know. You’re my guest, not Papa’s. I’m eighteen. I’m not a child.”

  “No. No, I suppose you’re an adult now.”

  “Officially. I’ve always been mature for my years, everyone says so.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I’ve come into my inheritance, too.”

  James hated himself for feeling a flicker of optimism over this news. “Your—your inheritance? Really?”

  The optimism was considerably tempered when she said, “My mother left me some money. It’s not much, but it’s enough to buy at least two mares for my bloodline.”

  James nodded. It was better that way. She would understand it was not her money that had brought him to New York. “Congratulations, then, Annis. I’m happy for you.”

  “And you, James?” she asked, giving him that direct forget-me-not look that had at first disturbed him and which now he loved. “Are you happy?”

  “I’m happy to be here with you,” he said simply.

  She reached up her hand, and he took it. They sat that way for a few moments, not speaking. The fire crackled and sent up a little shower of festive sparks. James thought he would never smell burning pine again without thinking of this tender fragment of time, with Annis’s hand in his and her strong profile glowing in the firelight. They were, at the very least, friends. Good friends, who could sit together in silence, hands linked, content just to be together. That was no small thing, after the months of misery.

  It even seemed possible, in this moment, that his heart need not break after all.

  42

  Harriet

  Harriet had seen the Marquess of Rosefield only from a distance, but she recognized him immediately. She had been expecting him.

  Grace answered the door, and Harriet emerged from the herbarium just in time to see Grace stop and stare, startled by the sight of the tall, thin young man at Annis’s side.

  Annis said, “Good morning, Grace. This is James. I know it’s early, but I need to see Aunt Harriet as soon as possible.”

  “This is—oh my, Miss Annis, of course it is!” Grace astounded Harriet by dropping a perfect curtsy. “Lord Rosefield, I believe, is your proper title, sir, is it not? What a great pleasure to see you here in America! Miss Harriet will be delighted—why, I’ll fetch her right now—but I do hope, my lord, you had a most pleasant journey, and that you’ll find our country as beautiful as your own. Miss Annis has told us all about it, and—”

  Harriet saw the young man’s eyes widen at this flood of conversation. She stepped out into the hallway so he and Annis could see her and said, “Thank you, Grace,” cutting through the tide of words as gently as she could.

  Annis brushed past Grace and hurried down the hallway. James hesitated, then handed his hat and coat to Grace with a little nod of acknowledgment and followed. “Aunt Harriet!” Annis exclaimed. “I have to talk to you, to tell you—”

  Harriet
interrupted her. “Of course, Annis, we’ll talk. But first, do please introduce me properly.”

  “Oh yes. Sorry. This is James. James, this is my great-aunt, Harriet Bishop.”

  The marquess inclined his head. “Miss Bishop.”

  She liked him at once, but was not tempted, as Grace had been, to curtsy. She put out her hand in the American style, and he took it. “Marquess, I’m glad to meet you at last. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

  “And I about you,” he said, shaking and then releasing her hand. “I will be happy to postpone pleasantries, as Annis is quite upset about her stepmother.”

  “Is she?” Harriet led the way toward the parlor. “Grace, some coffee, I think, as it’s so early. Marquess Rosefield, do come this way. Annis, tell me what’s happened.”

  Annis began speaking even before they had taken seats. Harriet bent her head to listen, even as she noticed that the marquess took a straight chair as close to Annis as he could.

  “Blackwell’s Island, Aunt Harriet!” Annis finished. “My father—I can’t believe he would be so cruel. It’s true she seems—I can’t argue that it seems her mind is gone, but I know—” She caught herself and only just managed to stop herself from casting a guilty glance James’s way. “That is, I—I worry—that she’s still there, trapped.”

  The marquess asked, “Is this place so terrible? We have lunatic asylums in England, of course, and while they were appalling in years past, I understand they have improved greatly.”

  “It is terrible!” Annis said. “There was a book about Blackwell’s Island, and a great public outcry, but very little has been done.”

  “I’m afraid Annis is right,” Harriet said. “Blackwell’s calls itself an asylum, but it is in effect a prison, simply a place to put people away. I’m shocked Mr. Allington would allow this to happen to Frances, no matter how ill she is.”

  “You are related to Mrs. Allington, I believe,” the marquess said.

  “We are distant cousins.”