Chapter 4
The ride to the estate took little more than half an hour.
I tried to put aside my anxious feelings about what had just transpired with Mr. Hoffmann and instead concentrated on the view outside the carriage window.
It was easy to do, because the fancy landau with its glass windows attracted stares from pedestrians.
We traveled down the main lane in town, Orchard Street, where most of the businesses and shops were—a wagon and carriage factory, a flour mill, a boatyard, and the Silver Shoe factory.
But after a bumpy ride past this handful of buildings, we were outside the main business center and trotting away to a distant place along the Hudson, where all the New York City millionaires had been building homes to escape the roar of the crowds.
I could hardly blame them, gazing out at land that was breathtakingly serene.
The river twisted through trees and fields, and lazy steamboats floated along, their sides draped in American flags and painted with their names.
Was the sky this big over Manhattan? I couldn’t remember ever seeing this much of it.
Perhaps this was the freedom I’d been chasing all my life.
It felt like potential.
The carriage rolled down a narrow path in a copse of trees, and then the silent driver guided the four black horses around a wheat farm ringed by small cottages, where smoke rose from stone chimneys.
After we drove around the perimeter of the fields, we emerged at a junction.
Toward the river’s bank ahead, I spotted a large building.
I couldn’t make out any details, only an imposing shape silhouetted against the big, gray sky that made my stomach flutter nervously.
“Faster!” Mr. Hoffmann cried out to the driver, lifting out of his seat. “Faster, man, faster!”
Alarmed, I grabbed the valet’s hand and tried to tug him back down into his seat. “Mr. Hoffmann, please don’t work yourself up—we don’t need you falling out of the coach.”
The driver cracked his whip.
The carriage bumped along the sandy path faster.
But not fast enough for Mr. Hoffmann.
He was inconsolable. Agitated. His breath was too rapid and shallow. One hand gripped the edge of the bench seat while the other went to his coat pocket and took out the strange hourglass. He squinted at the single grain of sand descending through the thin neck.
“Ahhh!” he cried.
“What is that thing?” I asked, shouting to be heard over the clatter of the carriage.
He didn’t hear me. The Frisians were racing too fast. Every bump in the road sent my backside flying several inches above the velvet seat and back down again.
Howling wind whipped against the windows, tossing a flurry of amber leaves against the glass.
For a chaotic moment, I couldn’t see outside the coach.
“Faster!” Mr. Hoffmann rasped.
“No!” I cried, gripping the seat for dear life. My very insides would be shaken out of me if we continued at this terrifying pace. “No more!”
The coachman called out a command to the horses and jerked on the reins—hard. I squeezed my eyes shut and said a prayer. After an incalculable amount of time spent fearing that I was on the verge of being thrown from the coach, I finally felt the wooden wheels slowing down.
I opened my eyes.
We came to a stop in front of a pair of massive gates wreathed in fog. Beyond them, a young brown-haired woman in a black dress ran toward us down a long drive, racing as if she were attempting to outrun a terrible fire.
“Signor Hoff!” she cried out in a heavy Italian accent. “I am coming for you! Hold on!”
When the girl came to a sliding stop at the gates and pushed them open with a grunt, her angular face was filled with worry.
Stumbling, Mr. Hoffmann swung the door open and threw himself out of the coach.
“Sir—!” My hand grasped tendrils of fog as his body hit the drive. He rolled a couple of times until he came to a stop on his back, eyes fluttering closed.
“Help me!” the Italian girl begged while gripping one of Mr. Hoffmann’s legs. Then she began dragging him, one inch at a time, through the gates. “Don’t just sit there! He’s heavy!”
Spurred into action, I leapt out of the carriage and grabbed Mr. Hoffmann’s other leg.
This was not the proper way to transport an unwell person.
I assumed the young servant girl to be Filomena, as she was about my age and therefore was likely the cook that the valet had mentioned in passing.
But if that, indeed, was her identity, Filomena was yanking Mr. Hoffmann’s leg so roughly that I worried if I didn’t take up the slack, he’d be injured further.
And yet, unbelievably, he merely mumbled “Danke, danke” as his back glided across the driveway.
“He needs proper transport!” I told the servant girl. “I’m training to be a nurse. I know about these things.”
The servant shook her head firmly. “And I know things that you don’t.
He needs”—she grunted as we cleared the big black gates—“to get onto the grounds.” As soon as the man’s head was inside the gates, the servant girl dropped his leg unceremoniously to the ground and huffed out a labored breath. “Whoof! That was close!”
Mr. Hoffmann lay still for a moment and then let out the deepest sigh I’d ever heard. “I am… alive! I returned from the city, alive!”
“You did a fine job, Signor Hoff. The master will be pleased to see you,” the girl assured him.
None of this made sense. Why had the valet’s mood improved so quickly?
He didn’t appear harmed, and with our combined help he was able to stand with little problem.
In fact, the only real damage to his person was discovered when Mr. Hoffmann stuck his hand inside his coat pocket.
He pulled out glass shards where the strange hourglass had been, nicking his hand and causing a dot of blood to well, a sight that seemed to terrify him all over again.
His eyes widened, as if all the horrors of the world lay inside the ruins of that glass, and he’d barely escaped them.
Only just barely.
He quickly dumped the glass onto the ground, wiped his hand, and shivered.
“You cut yourself,” I pointed out.
“It’s fine,” he said, tugging a handkerchief from his pocket to staunch the blood. “I made it home. Everything is okay now.”
What does he mean? The servant girl didn’t seem to find his behavior unusual.
Even more perplexing was the coachman, who never bothered to get off the carriage or offered to help.
The girl joined me in removing our luggage, and when we were done, the coachman merely tugged on the reins, spurring the horses into motion, and guided the carriage along a road that led around the building.
“Thanks for your help, miss,” the servant girl said.
“Indeed, thank you,” Mr. Hoffmann said as he held the handkerchief to his hand. “Not precisely the welcome you deserve. I hope you’ll forgive me, because we are all pleased to have you here at Riverbend Manor.”
I straightened, blowing out a hard breath, and truly looked upon the home for the first time.
Constructed of limestone, the manor was a hulking gray beast perched on the high banks of the river.
Dozens of spires and ornate chimneys stabbed into the midday sky.
Turrets stood at either of the front corners, and stained-glass windows arched into points.
It looked a little like St. Patrick’s Cathedral back in the city, just without all the crosses.
I wouldn’t have been surprised to see plump cherubs flying around the home’s pointed turrets.
Bollocks, that’s impressive, I thought.
As I took it all in, I noticed upright granite stones extending in lines from either side of the front gates, surrounding the property like a fence that wouldn’t keep anyone out, as you could walk right between them.
Maybe they were formal boundary markers?
The stones were about my height, stood a few feet apart, and were narrow, tapering to a pyramid shape on top.
“Took fifty men an entire month to install the obelisks,” the girl said, shielding her eyes as she glanced at them.
Obelisks? Aha! I knew that word from the newspaper.
“I’ve read that the Egyptian government has gifted the U.S.
an ancient pillar like these. The Egyptian one is probably much taller, I think, because they’re building an entire railroad to transport it once it gets here, and it’s going to be placed in Central Park. ”
“Is that so?” the girl said. “We never hear about things like that out here. But these obelisks aren’t ancient. The master had them custom made at a quarry near Rochester. They finished installing them a couple weeks ago.”
I quickly took in the crushed-pebble path leading from the drive to the home’s entrance, autumnal trees flanking the front steps. “I’ve never seen anything so grand,” I admitted.
“Gothic Revival style,” Mr. Hoffmann informed me, brushing off his trousers.
He was still breathless, but the color was returning to his cheeks.
“The house was built thirty years ago by the master’s father based on a cathedral in Amsterdam, where the family is originally from.
His grandfather was a patroon. Do you know what a patroon is? ”
I shook my head, feeling slightly sheepish that I didn’t.
“It means he was an investor in the Dutch West India Company, which gave him all this beautiful Hudson Valley land.”
That sounded important. I couldn’t fathom what it took to build something so extraordinary, but here it stood, a monument to wealth and beauty. How rich is this family? I thought in amazement.
“You’ll get accustomed to its grand size,” the servant girl said. She stuck out her hand. “Filomena Assante. I’m the kitchen maid. I mean cook—I’m the cook.”
Had she recently been promoted? Maybe she wasn’t used to introducing herself to new people. I accepted her hand and shook. “Molly O’Rinn. I look forward to working inside this fine home.”
“Fine?” she repeated with a little snort, as if I’d made a ridiculous statement.
I felt my cheeks warm as a new sense of confusion rose inside my breast.
Wind lashed across the front lawn. “We’d better get inside before we freeze,” Mr. Hoffmann suggested, grabbing both his luggage and my portmanteau. He gave the cook a brief critical look, which only puzzled me further.
What are they not saying?
I tried to keep my uneasy feelings in check.
After all, I was far away from home, operating with little sleep.
I wasn’t perceiving the situation as it actually was—my mind had warped my perception.
If I’d just concentrate on simpler matters—the scenery, for example—all of this would soon make… sense.
I trailed behind the servants, down the long drive toward the strange house. The land was beautiful here along the river, where the estate’s expansive lawn floated above the Hudson’s pale waters. On the opposite bank lay dark, rolling hills.
“Here we are,” Mr. Hoffmann said as we ascended a few steps to the entrance.
Filomena pushed the double doors open, bringing in a swirl of golden autumn leaves on the wind. “Welcome to Riverbend Manor, home of Charles Voss, pride of Tarrytown.”
Strolling into the grand foyer was like being willingly swallowed whole into the belly of a whale. A little shiver crested over my arms.
Riverbend Manor’s interior certainly matched the outside, at least in design.
A peaked, vaulted ceiling rose two stories high, making me feel as if I were walking into a museum. Or a church. Colorful light streamed through the tall stained-glass windows, warming highly polished wood paneling and a marble floor. Life-size oil paintings in elaborate frames graced the walls.
Everywhere I looked was something beautiful. Fresh-cut hothouse flowers. Baroque wall sconces. Imported European furniture covered in silks and velvets.
All of it was gilded.
And it seemed to go on forever. “This is… still the entrance hall?” I asked, marveling.
Filomena nodded. “The foyer is the heart of the home.”
We walked past a round library table holding a crystal vase of flowers.
I rotated my head to admire all the highly arched doorways that lined the walls—“There are over a hundred rooms in Riverbend,” the valet informed me.
Then my gaze fell upon the most impressive thing I’d ever seen inside a house.
In the back half of the foyer was a swooping imperial staircase with curved stairs on either side meeting in the middle on the balcony above. It was grand and luxurious, a mark of great wealth. But it was what stood at the base of the staircase that stole all the attention.
A life-size pair of polished marble statues. One was female, the other male, and they stood upon grand pedestals that were taller than me. A marble faun stood at the woman’s sandaled feet; the man held a lyre. Laurels circled their heads.
“Ah, yes. Artemis and Apollo, the divine twins,” Mr. Hoffmann informed me. “The master’s parents had these carved after the Voss twins were born. We call them the house guardians.”
“Guardians?” I craned my neck to look up at them and felt small. Near the feet of Artemis, a copper railing with an elaborate gate circled black granite stairs that descended into the floor below us. “I suppose it does look like they’re guarding the entrance to a mysterious underworld…”
“Oh, you’ll find that this is a house of mysteries and marvels,” Filomena agreed in a tone that sounded as if there was something hidden in her words. “Please, let me take your outer garments.”
I juggled my medical bag, shrugged out of my wool cape, and allowed the cook to gather it and fold it neatly in half on her arm while I continued to look around the grand hall. The mahogany banister had an animal design carved into the spindles and smelled of the sweet orange oil used to polish it.
And on the second floor, leaning over the railing in a green silk robe, Mr. Voss peered down at us. His blond hair was unkempt.
Blue eyes connected with mine, and a slow smile filled his face that triggered a riot of butterflies to flutter nervously inside my belly.
“Master!” Mr. Hoffmann shouted up to the man. “I have brought the nurse from the city.”
“I see that. Fine work, Hoffmann. Get her settled properly and…” He trailed off as he tilted his head and paused.
Was he listening to something? I couldn’t hear anything.
But after a moment, he gave me a nod and said, “I’m delighted you agreed to come, Miss O’Rinn.
I’ll give you a personal tour later. For now, welcome to my estate.
” He coughed into a handkerchief before walking away from the balcony, out of sight.
An unfamiliar voice spoke near my shoulder. “That poor man.”
I turned to face the speaker, a middle-aged female servant. Perhaps this person had more answers than Mr. Hoffmann.
Surely someone here had to.