“What are you doing, just standing there?”
A woman appeared beneath the archway to the mansion’s porte-cochère. She wore a plain, dark day dress and had one of those faces that made her exact age difficult to guess, with a thick brow and loose jowls.
Lillian braced herself, expecting to be shooed away, but instead, the woman drew close, lifting one hand. It shook slightly, as if affected by some kind of nerves.
“You’re early,” she said with obvious disapproval. “Go in through the servants’ entrance, there.” She pointed to the right, where a passageway between an iron fence and the front of the residence descended into a stairway. “Through the basement. The cook will give you a cup of tea while you wait. She’s not ready for you yet.”
A cup of tea had never sounded so appealing.
Before Lillian could say anything, the woman turned and disappeared into the shadows of the arch.
Lillian’s stone likeness smiled calmly down at her, as if curious as to what she was about to do next.
The woman thought she was someone else. A messenger picking something up, perhaps. Or a scullery maid. Lillian could at least get a cup of tea out of it, until they figured out their mistake. She’d apologize and leave, but until then, why not? These big houses were filled with servants; probably no one would pay her any mind. Luckily, she was very rarely recognized from the statues themselves. Each artist she’d worked with had put his own spin on her visage, playing up whatever features he admired most, making her unlikely to attract attention from strangers when she was out and about in the world.
She’d drink her tea. And then disappear back into the streets.
Chapter Four
The steps the jowly woman had directed Lillian to led to a basement door, which opened up into an anteroom. To the left was an enormous kitchen, where she counted seven maids bent over their work, peeling potatoes or stirring pots, under the watchful eye of a man who had to be the chef, barking out orders in a French accent. The tantalizing smell of caramelized onions almost made her swoon. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was.
The woman reappeared and told one of the kitchen maids to fetch Lillian a cup of tea. “You may wait in there,” she said, pointing through a door to the staff dining room. The kitchen maid brought the tea in a few minutes later, barely looking at Lillian before rushing back to work.
The tea soothed Lillian’s dry throat. It was nice being below street level, in the cool of a basement. No one cared who she was, and she felt deliciously invisible. But she couldn’t stay long. She drained the cup quickly and was standing to leave, eyeing some scones cooling on a sideboard, daring herself to slip one into her pocket, when the woman’s silhouette filled the doorway.
“Follow me. Upstairs.” She turned and started out the door.
Lillian froze, trapped. How to make an excuse and get out of whatever was waiting for her upstairs?
If someone did recognize her as Angelica—and if anyone would, it would be the family who had purchased her visage to look at every time they passed under the porte-cochère—then they might call the police and she’d be done for.
“I’m afraid I must go,” she said.
The woman kept walking away, one finger up in the air. “This way. Come on.”
Lillian followed, but only so she could make excuses and leave. “I’m not well, you see. I should go. I’ll make another appointment when I’m better.”
Her words echoed up the staircase. Again, the woman didn’t appear to have heard her, tromping solidly upward.
“Hello?”
No response. Lillian was about to pull on her elbow to get her to stop, but by then they’d reached the landing, and it was all Lillian could do not to gape. After the functional trappings of the lower level, the floor above was an absolute shock. The delicately veined marble walls blended seamlessly into the marble floors like a shiny stone waterfall. Through the lacy black iron balustrade of a grand staircase, she spied some kind of grand pipe organ with a gilded console and four rows of keys, like gleaming white teeth.
Lillian had seen photos of the interiors of the Fifth Avenue mansions in the newspapers, but they were very different, the parlors stuffy and dark, the mantels jammed with vases and delicate, useless knickknacks. This place was airy in comparison, lit by giant windows. She spotted a Renoir hanging across from the organ, which she recognized from leafing through one of the many oversized art books scattered about Isidore Konti’s studio. She would have liked to stop and admire it, but the woman pulled her along, making a sharp turn into a room that, once again, left Lillian gaping like a fool.
As if she expected that reaction, the woman paused a moment, looking about with a dour expression on her face.
Silk drapes cascaded from just under the crown molding, held back by thick ties with tasseled ends. The floor was of parquet wood in a complicated pattern, and the sheen of gold gleamed everywhere, from the painted wainscot to the fireplace irons to the intricate bronze candelabras on the mantel.
But that was the least of the grandeur. The room’s wall panels depicted a cavorting couple, the woman dressed in the loveliest of gowns from the eighteenth century, lined with ribbons and flowers, the sleeves puffy, the skirts filled out with dozens of petticoats. It was a dreamscape far from the world Lillian knew, and made her want to weep with pity at her own dishabille.
The woman gave an audible tsk of disapproval as she walked over to the far window and adjusted a curtain that didn’t need adjusting. “Do your best to ignore the provocative decor.”
“I think it’s divine.”
Again, her comment got no reaction from the woman, who still had her back to her.
She must be partly deaf, Lillian finally realized. “You’re absolutely mad if you don’t agree.”
Nothing. No response. She was right.
The woman turned around and pointed to a chair. “You may have a seat here and wait. Miss Helen will be with you shortly.”
Who was Miss Helen?
An older woman, this one dressed in lustrous black silk with a bosom so pronounced Lillian was surprised she didn’t pitch forward, looked in from the doorway on the far side of the room. “Miss Winnie? Oh, there you are.” She stamped her foot once, and Miss Winnie turned, sensing the vibration.
Lillian rose from where she’d been sitting, but the woman in black gave her a disinterested glance, as if she were as inanimate as one of the porcelain vases that dotted the side tables.
“Yes, Mrs. Frick?” answered Miss Winnie.
“I need you.”
Miss Winnie followed her, Lillian all but forgotten.
Frick. That’s whose house she was in. The Fricks, Lillian knew from the gossip columns, made their fortune in steel, and had two grown children. The newspapers had made a grateful fuss out of the fact that Mr. Frick had designated that his house eventually be left to the city and turned into a museum.
In any event, having Miss Winnie pulled away gave Lillian a chance to escape. She needed to get out, now. But as she was exiting, yet another woman lurched in. She was shorter than Lillian, perhaps a few years older, and had a spaniel with doleful eyes tucked under one arm. Her dress was plain but well-made, her frizzy ginger hair messily arranged in a puffy pompadour several years out of style. She stuck out a hand and shook Lillian’s like a lumberjack might. Her complexion was dotted with freckles that grew darker right under her eyes, like copper tears.