Frank thought about the early days when he had been hired by old man Jenson Cassidy and his wife Thelma. The three boys had been mere children then, and things had been considerably different. Different, that is, from the way they were later on when Frank-an aging though still effective worker-became young Mr. Tim's valet. He had seen Tim through his bachelor days and watched the comings and going of hundreds of comely young women, and then he had been with him during the first few years of his marriage to Sylvie. Frank knew, as did all the servants in the big house in Grandville, that strictly speaking Sylvie was not of the same caliber as the Cassidys. He had even heard Mrs.
Thelma Cassidy refer to her daughter-in-law as a "shopkeeper's daughter from the sticks." Nevertheless, with her elegant looks and manners and that natural poise of hers, Sylvie had managed to hold her own. There were a few minor exceptions, of course, and Frank smiled to himself now as he recalled that night when Sylvie's voice had spoken so harshly into the intercom. Frank could not recall the exact words, but she had said something like "Help… you've! Got to come help me!"
"Here we are, Mrs. Cassidy!" Frank said, pulling up in front of a small three-story apartment building. There were similar houses on either side of it, and sloping lawns ran down to the sidewalk, divided by descending concrete steps.
Wet and cold as she was, Sylvie did not want to enter that building.
Yet, she knew that she would. She had very little to say in the matter.
Frank hurried around the front of the car and opened the door for her.
Then he produced an umbrella and, taking her gently by the elbow, escorted her up the concrete steps to the front door of the small apartment building. For a moment he fumbled with his keys, and then they were entering the warm interior of the building.
"Here we are… it's right here!" he said, a tone of excitement entering his voice.
Once more Sylvie reminded herself that the Cassidys at least owed Frank a little bit of interest in his life after he had been with them for so long. After all, servants were people, too… not to be dismissed with a nod and a thank you and some money as though they had no real lives of their own. She felt a little better as she entered the apartment. It was quite large inside, and although sparsely furnished it gave the appearance of being very comfortable. A wall-to-wall rug covered the living room floor, and an old-fashioned sofa looked like a good spot for her to sit. But first she gravitated toward a radiator that was giving off steam heat in a corner of the room.
"Yes, that's right, Mrs. Cassidy, warm yourself. Shall I make some tea?"
"Tea would be lovely, Frank!" Sylvie replied, her teeth chattering as she backed up against the radiator and looked around her and Frank disappeared into what she assumed was the kitchen. Through an open door at the end of the living room she could see a large double bed, and upon its white chenille spread lay what appeared to be some kind of tools. She remembered that Frank had told her he had some kind of workshop, and she wondered what kind of things he made. Then she saw for the first time that the end tables on either side of the sofa were covered with framed photographs. She went over to see the pictures and was startled when she saw that each frame contained a photograph of a member of the Cassidy family. They were all taken from newspapers and magazines, but had been cleverly cropped so that they looked like real pictures. Everyone was there; a smiling and waving Thelma Cassidy, looking half her seventy-odd years, wiry and spry as a young girl in her flowing veils and stylishly cut dress… an old picture of Jenson Cassidy, the enterprising oil magnate who had been dead for many years now-the picture showed him shaking with President Teddy Roosevelt, and Sylvie was shocked to think of how long ago it had been taken… then there was Tim, her husband, and Sylvie's heart skipped a beat to see a young and innocent-looking boy, probably still in prep school, years before their marriage, when she herself had probably been in grade school. Frank had known her husband then, and even before that, and Sylvie realized that she had rarely, if ever, thought of this fact.
Why, Frank was more of a Cassidy than she was, really!
There were also pictures of Ron graduating from Yale, already looking sternly serious and determined, and of Erick sitting on the zebrastriped seats of that famous nightclub in New York with some gorgeous debutante. Then Sylvie saw a photo of herself! It was by far the largest and the most recent, but she had not seen it at first because it was half hidden behind the lamp. She recognized the photograph as the one from the cover of Weekly Magazine. One of the best she'd ever taken, it showed her perfectly balanced patrician features, her broad smile and shining white teeth and her flowing blonde hair, framed before a background of the Capital Building in Washington. It had been taken several years before, and Sylvie recalled looking at it carefully that night… the fatal night when she had taken the fake medicine!
Frank must have cut it out then, she thought with alarm. Homey sounds of clinking china were coming from the direction of the kitchen.
Hurriedly, Sylvie replaced the picture so that it was behind the lamp.
She remembered that the caption had read: "Sylvie Cassidy the popular D.A.'s wife/On her way to Washington?"
Well, here she was in Washington, and her husband had already been reselected to the Senate. She knew that his brother Ron was already hard at work so that Tim would get his party's nomination at the convention, and Tim himself never ceased to remind her that she must never do or say anything that would reflect poorly upon a prospective First Lady. She must act as though she had already attained that exalted height, and that way there would be no problems.
But at this moment Sylvie felt very far from being a First Lady. In fact, she was acutely aware of the fact that she was not. Some of her old insecurity that she had known in the early days returned to her as she thought anxiously that perhaps she would not make a good President's wife after all. She had been doing just fine so far, true, and there wasn't a Washington hostess who did not vie for her presence at the numerous teas and parties that took place in and around Washington. She and her senator husband were always invited to the most prestigious embassy parties as well, and Sylvie was famous for her clothes and her exquisite good looks. A tall, willowy blonde, there was little that she could wear that did not become her; and her figure, she knew, was the envy of all the women who were acquainted with her.
People sensed the deep sensual bond between her and the handsome Senator, and it made them one of the most popular couples in Washington. Her husband's brother and expert campaign manager, Ron, had put it crudely to her long ago, and Sylvie had to admit that he'd been correct.
"The people want to elect a senator who looks like he's getting laid.
And you're our ticket to ride!"
Sylvie sat uncomfortably upon the sofa. Her dress was still damp, although she felt quite a bit warmer than before. She wished that she had something to put around her, for she feared that the already thin material of her dress had become so translucent with moisture that the round brown tips of her bare nipples beneath were showing. What am I doing here anyway? she asked herself. I should have insisted that Frank take me right home! She repeated to herself her husband's words when she had worried about the aging valet's reaction to that devastating evening in her dressing room.
"I trust Frank implicitly, Sylvie. I'm sure he only thought he was doing the right thing. He was following your orders, even though they were bizarre. He was responding above and beyond the call of duty. I'm sure he looks upon it that way. Don't forget, he was trained long ago in England to respond to the most unusual of circumstances with dignity and calm. You and I will try to forget about what happened. Certainly Frank already has!"