“I was a model, and a very successful one. But it wasn’t sordid in any way. My mother was with me whenever I modeled. I became more and more popular, and then my landlord became infatuated with me, after my mother died, and tried to take advantage. He killed his wife and suddenly my name was linked with his.”
“Much like you linked yourself with Mr. Danforth.”
There was no more to be said. Lillian had been a fool in many ways, but especially to think that she could have had a long-term position by Miss Helen’s side, that they could work together to build a spectacular library of art. That this could be her profession, her life’s work.
Miss Helen opened the door to Lillian’s room and motioned for her to enter. Lillian did; then Miss Helen slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside.
Chapter Nineteen
Miss Helen would like to see you.”
The chambermaid who unlocked Lillian’s door carried a tray with a bowl of tomato soup and a cup of tea. Lillian was hungry, but she took it from the girl and laid it on her dresser, then followed her downstairs. They would grow cold, but that was the least of her worries.
A flurry of activity greeted her inside Miss Helen’s bedroom. The woman was tossing clothes in the air, Bertha trailing behind to pick them up, barely missing getting hit by a brocade shoe.
“Where is it?” said Miss Helen. “I know it was here, and now it’s gone. I must find it!”
“Where is what?” asked Lillian, not moving from the doorway.
Miss Helen straightened, her mouth set in a tense line. “I sent for you because I’m hoping you know.”
Lillian inhaled. “Know what?”
“The file of letters from Sir Robert Witt. The ones where he laid out his system of classification for his London art library. I must take it with me to Eagle Rock, and I can’t find it.”
“You asked me to place it in the bowling alley, in the bookshelves reserved for correspondence.”
“I did?” Miss Helen stared just above Lillian’s head, as if the truth could be found in the crevices of the crown moldings.
“You did. May I go now and eat my rations?”
“Oh, now, don’t be so dramatic.”
That Miss Helen could say something so blithely, as if Lillian weren’t about to be hauled off to jail, infuriated her. Lillian gestured around at the riot of fabrics and books that covered the gray carpet. “I am not the one being dramatic. Bertha will now have to clean all of this up, when the file wasn’t even here in the first place.”
“Right. She will.” Miss Helen glanced over at Bertha. “She doesn’t mind, though.”
A fleeting, hateful look passed over Bertha’s face, but Miss Helen had already turned away. Nothing pierced her bubble of insularity. She motioned to Miss Lillian. “Come with me so I don’t waste another minute.”
In the basement, they headed to the work space. It seemed so long ago that they’d bowled together. A lifetime ago.
Lillian easily located the overstuffed file on the bottom shelf. “Here. It’s filed under C for Correspondence.”
Miss Helen looked at it as if she wasn’t sure why she wanted it in the first place, and sighed. “It’s awfully large. Maybe I’ll leave it here anyway.”
It was all Lillian could do not to give the woman a good shove.
“Is that all?” Lillian asked.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” Helen paused. “I have something to tell you. I mean, it’s not why I brought you down here, but while we’re alone . . .”
Lillian waited.
“The family has spoken with Mr. DeWitt, and we’ve decided that if you tell us the location of the cameo, we will set you free. It does us no good to have the Frick name dragged through the mud, which it would certainly be, if you get taken to the police station and charged.”
Always thinking of themselves. “I don’t know where it is. I didn’t take it.”
“I know you say that, but be reasonable. You will be free; we’ll all be better off if you tell us.”
“I don’t know.”
Miss Helen considered Lillian. “I still can’t believe you took off your clothes and posed for men.”
“It was how I kept myself and my mother fed and housed.”
“Still. I can’t imagine doing such a thing. When you told me before the dinner party to pretend that everyone was undressed, was that what you would do?”
“Sometimes. Once you’re used to being in the altogether, it feels quite natural. Think of all of the nudes painted by the greatest artists. Titian, Botticelli. Someone had to pose for them.”
Miss Helen cocked her head. “Funny. I had all but forgotten that there were actual people involved.”
“You approach it from a different vantage point, as an artwork to be catalogued, the value noted.”
“I can’t believe how many of you are out there, around the city.” She spoke with awe, not repulsion. “You’re everywhere.”
“They aren’t me. They’re idealized, exaggerated versions of what a man thinks a woman should be. In any event, I think it’s swell that they’re out in the world, no admission fee necessary. If the common man can look upon a statue and be moved, I find nothing offensive about that.”
“I suppose you have a point.”
“Look, more than anyone, I would like to figure out who stole the cameo. And who left the draft on the sink. Maybe, if we work together, we can figure it out.”
Miss Helen hugged the file to her chest. “But you were the only person I told about Martha’s cameo and diamond.”
“What if someone overheard us talking? What if someone was in the enamels room when you placed it with Mr. Frick, and we didn’t know it?”
Miss Helen paused. “If someone was in there, they would have heard everything. But that’s really quite a stretch.”
“What if your mother or your brother heard us coming, and hid in there?”
Miss Helen let out a harsh laugh. “Why would my mother or brother want to take the cameo?”
Lillian struggled for an answer, anything to keep this conversation going, keep Miss Helen considering other options. “Your mother might have wanted it as a remembrance of Martha, not wanted to see it be buried with your father.”
“My mother would have told me such a thing, and not allowed an innocent woman to be accused. You might as well be accusing Miss Winnie.”
“What about her? Might she have taken it?”
“To what end? She adores the entire family, has been with us for decades. What’s she going to do, steal the cameo and run off with the butler? Also, don’t forget that she’s quite deaf. She couldn’t have overheard us talking.”
That was true. And regardless, no one in the family would take the blame for this, even if they had done it. “Well then, as I said, I didn’t do it, so I can’t tell you where it is.”
“So you’d go to jail when you could be free?”
“I have no choice in the matter. Who told Mr. DeWitt that I was Angelica?”
“I can’t say.”
Not that it mattered.
“Well, I’m sorry it has to end like this,” said Miss Helen. “I valued your assistance.”
She was dismissing Lillian, as if she were moving on to take another job, not being sent to jail.
“You are cruel.” The words flew out of Lillian’s mouth.
“And you are stubborn. I’ll call for one of the footmen to take you back to your room.” She walked to the far wall of the billiard room and gave a yank on the embroidered bellpull.
Lillian’s instinct told her to run. To hide. She had only a minute or so before she’d be locked in her room again.
The basement was full of corners and hideaways. How tempting it would be to find one and tuck herself away. Or make her way up to the third floor and crawl into an empty trunk in the storage room, or one of the massive drawers in the linen closet. Then, in the dead of night, she’d figure out how to escape. After all, she’d done it before, from the apartment. But the Fricks’ servants knew the house better than she did. She’d eventually be caught.