Chapter 5
I smiled at a tall, middle-aged woman whose graying hair was swept into a neat pile atop her head and covered by a pleated white servant’s mobcap.
Like the cook, she also wore black skirts and a white apron, but this woman had a clanging chatelaine at her waist filled with tools and keys.
Hers was much more impressive than the simple one given to me by the hospital.
That meant this woman held some status in this household.
Maybe she has answers about Mr. Hoffman’s condition.
“Molly O’Rinn, junior nurse,” I told her, bowing my head politely.
“I am Mrs. Culpepper, head housekeeper,” the woman informed me, peering down a thin, long nose. “I manage the day-to-day house business alongside Mr. Hoffman.”
I glanced at Mr. Hoffman. “I thought you were Mr. Voss’s valet…?”
“I am both the master’s personal valet and the head butler of his home,” he answered, giving me a soft smile. “I do what the master needs of me. Our staff here is small and efficient.”
“Miss O’Rinn—” the housekeeper began.
“ ‘Nurse Molly’ is fine,” I informed them. “Pleased to meet all of you. I look forward to seeing the estate and getting to know the rest of the staff.”
The housekeeper tugged a black wool shawl higher up on her shoulders as a look of puzzlement colored her pale cheeks. “My dear, this is the staff. All three of us.”
How could that be? For a mansion this size? It just wasn’t possible. There should have been a staff of twenty. More. Who changed the beds? Who kept the fires lit? Who washed the clothes and dishes? Drew water from the well and milked the cows?
By the long-suffering look on Mrs. Culpepper’s face, I guessed she did a lot of it herself.
“What about the coachman who drove us here?” I asked.
The housekeeper’s eyes darted away, and Mr. Hoffmann cleared his throat. “The coachman doesn’t live or work with us inside the manor.”
“You’ll hardly notice him,” Filomena said.
The housekeeper nodded. “Why don’t Mr. Hoffmann and I take your things upstairs.
We’ll show you to your room, where you can rest from your journey and freshen up.
Filomena will finish up lunch preparations, and then you may dine with us in the kitchen.
Later today, I’ll take you to Master Voss so that you can get started on your work with him. ”
I supposed I wasn’t getting answers about Mr. Hoffmann anytime soon, but I liked the sound of getting to work.
“Is that your medical bag? I can carry that,” Filomena offered, looking eagerly down at the black, pebbled leather in my grip. Her fingers touched the handle, and I was filled with irrational anxiety, suddenly possessive of the bag and its contents.
I pulled it away from her and held it closer to my body. “No, I can manage, thank you.”
She was taken aback by my action, and a look of personal hurt and insult came over her face as her brow furrowed.
“Sorry,” I mumbled before the housekeeper instructed Filomena to “Just bring the tea upstairs.” The girl curtsied politely and retreated, leaving me feeling silly.
No one is trying to take our medicines. We just need sleep, is all, I told myself as Mrs. Culpepper gestured for me to follow them up the staircase.
Hissing gas whispered from frosted-glass wall sconces as we ascended to the second floor.
Mr. Hoffmann left his own luggage in the foyer—“My private room is downstairs”—and helpfully carried my portmanteau.
I rounded the curving steps behind him, peering down, where a bigger-than-life-size oil painting hung from the wall in the middle of the double staircase.
A portrait of a young woman in hunting gear with two stern dogs at her feet and a bow grasped in one hand.
She was posed in front of this very stairwell.
“Who is that?” I asked.
Mr. Hoffman paused to gaze down at the painting.
“That is a portrait of the master’s sister, Agnes.
She first became sick when she was about your age.
At one time, the Voss family only used this home in the summer.
But that changed when the master brought Agnes here to live permanently, as a place to convalesce.
He heard about the sanatoriums being built across the Atlantic in the Alps, so he thought she should be here, away from the city, where the air is cleaner. ”
A reasonable thing to do. But I supposed it didn’t help her in the end.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I told the servants, glancing at the black armbands they wore.
But they just looked away, as if they’d rather avoid discussion.
I hadn’t thought about the sister much since her corpse had left the hospital mortuary, only when I’d seen the funeral announcement in the newspaper.
If this portrait was accurate, Agnes had been a great beauty, blond like her brother.
A dozen small candles burned on a small, altar-like console table below the portrait.
I wanted to ask the servants more about Agnes, but the thought was quickly put aside as I hurried to catch up with them, heading around the last curve of the grand staircase, and the full view of the second floor came into view.
I gasped.
Stuffed beasts howled from floor displays lining a wide hallway, wolves and bears and stags… and dozens of smaller animals. Birds in flight were suspended overhead. A moose looked as if it could step off its polished platform and gallop right down the corridor.
I had to remind my pounding heart that they were no longer alive as I clutched the handle of my medical bag harder.
I’d never seen such marvels outside a museum. It smelled a little like one too, musty and strange. Thousands of motes danced in the thin gray light that shone into the second floor from a massive skylight that ran the length of the corridor.
“We call this the Menagerie Hall,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “Agnes was skilled with a bow and arrow.”
“She killed all these animals?” I asked, unsure whether to be impressed or appalled.
“The mistress could shoot a snake from a mile away. This way, please,” Mrs. Culpepper said, walking brisking around a glass case filled with mounted butterflies.
Trailing her, my steps were muffled by soft teal-green carpet that made me feel as if I was walking on water.
I couldn’t imagine how much that alone would cost. When I glanced up from my feet, I spied the housekeeper just ahead, closing a pair of gilded doors that led into expansive private quarters.
As she did, I caught a glimpse beyond those doors—walls of bookshelves surrounded a massive bed covered in exotic Moroccan silks and tasseled pillows.
The bed could likely have held an entire family, it was so big.
Must be the master’s private rooms.
“As I said, we’ll visit him later,” the housekeeper said quietly. “He doesn’t want to be disturbed right now.”
This made me uneasy. He was sick enough to need a live-in nurse. I’d been rushed here all the way from the city—given no choice or time to consider options. Then upon my arrival, the master was… too busy to meet with me?
It was strange. I really didn’t understand rich men.
The Menagerie Hall ended at an enormous windowed wall with a limited view of the Hudson and some formal gardens below. We turned a corner to the right and continued down a cross-hallway that wasn’t as grand or wide.
“This way,” Mr. Hoffmann said, hauling my luggage. “We have you here in the northern wing of the house.”
At least there were no more stuffed animals leaping from corners here. Several rooms lined both walls—all guest rooms, the housekeeper informed me. When we’d made it to the end of the wing, I was told that one of those rooms had been assigned to me, the last room on the right.
Mrs. Culpepper gestured with her arm out to show me inside a small bedroom.
By Riverbend’s standard, the room was average.
It had all the basic furniture: a bed, chair, wardrobe, dressing table with mirror.
But I’d never stayed in a room with such fine things.
My heart warmed at the sight of fresh flowers in a vase by the bed, and a little thrill went through me.
Look at me, a guest in a fancy home! I wished Bethany was here to ooh and aah over it, and for a moment the loss of her ghost pricked at my heart. But I pushed it away.
Mr. Hoffmann set my portmanteau down. “Here we are.”
“Will this do?” Mrs. Culpepper asked. “We’ve chosen this room for several reasons.
The view from the window is very good. You can see a bit of the Hudson and a bit of the estate.
We sit upon fifty acres of pristine natural beauty here, Nurse Molly.
Nothing around us but Tarrytown to the east, a small estate further north along the Hudson, and north of that a single Dutch church. ”
“It’s quite lovely, indeed,” I agreed, hoping they didn’t notice how overwhelmed and excited I was.
“There’s also a more practical view from your window,” Mr. Hoffmann said, pointing across a narrow atrium that separated my wing of the house from the Menagerie Hall, where a grand balcony window sat across from mine.
The drapes to that window were open, revealing a seating area stacked with books, and beyond it, the same enormous bed piled with tasseled pillows that I’d gotten a peek of earlier.
“That balcony, that’s Master Voss’s quarters,” Mr. Hoffmann said.
“Being his nurse, you might need to check to see if he’s up and about in the mornings. ”
“Convenient,” I agreed, spotting movement in the distant bedroom.
The housekeeper turned away from the window.
“Yes, it was Mr. Hoffmann’s idea. Now, my dear, all the linens are fresh, and I’ve set out a few things you may need.
If you have clothes that require washing, you may send them down to me using the dumbwaiter in the main corridor, just past the stuffed elk. Do you know how to use one?”
“A dumbwaiter? I do.” Back in the city, the hospital had several that we mostly used to transport soiled linens down to the basement laundry.
“Across the hall from this room, you’ll find a lavatory with a flushing toilet and plumbed hot water that runs to a bath and sink,” the housekeeper said. “No outdoor privies here in the winter. We enjoy all modern conveniences.”
A first for me. There was plumbing in the hospital, but I’d never had it in any place I’d lived. Certainly never indoor toilets. I tried to hide my surprise. “This will do nicely.”
The housekeeper patted my arm. “Ah, there’s Filomena now with a cup of hot tea. That will set you straight. After you’ve finished your cup, I bet you’ll feel more up to unpacking. And when lunch is ready, we’ll call you down.”
The young cook breezed into the room with a steaming cup on a saucer that she set on the dressing table while the housekeeper encouraged me to sit in the accompanying chair.
“Drink. It will make you feel human again. There’s a touch of cinnamon and orange peel in there, a special house blend. Go on, then. Have a sip.”
I wasn’t really in the mood for tea, but Mrs. Culpepper was insistent.
Instead of arguing, I inhaled the heady brew and sipped its spicy brown liquid as Mrs. Culpepper smiled down approvingly.
She was certainly going out of her way to make me feel welcome.
The orange tea was good and warming. I felt my face flush and my shoulders relaxing. “Thank you.”
“In the meantime,” Mr. Hoffmann warned, “you have your freedom, but be wary about exploring the house on your own. Some things you may stumble upon are treacherous. Things the master has… brought back from his travels. You don’t want to accidently run into them and hurt yourself.”
“The basement is strictly off-limits,” Mrs. Culpepper said firmly. “As is the library.”
“Library…?”
“The master will give you a proper tour after our luncheon,” Mr. Hoffmann assured me.
“Until then,” Mrs. Culpepper added, “if you see any closed doors, do not attempt to open them. They are closed for a reason. Due to the size of the house and the size of our staff, there are parts of this house that have been shut up tight for the winter. Do not tamper with them.”
I had no problem following a strict set of rules as long as they made sense.
Maintaining order was an important part of nursing.
And what the housekeeper had said made sense.
It even made me relax to know that parts of the house were boarded up for the winter, because now I could better understand how the bare-bones staff took care of this maze of sprawling rooms.
“And if you feel the desire to walk outside,” the housekeeper added, “be mindful of the border around the property. Never walk past the stone obelisks without the master or Mr. Hoffman. This land is wild and perilous, and we’ve had some problems with poachers, not to mention the animals that draw them to the property.
Wildcats, bears, and the like. Do not risk your own safety. ”
“Understood. Thank you kindly,” I told the housekeeper.
Mrs. Culpepper nodded and encouraged me to sip more of the hot orange tea. Once she was satisfied that I was obeying, she signaled for the servants to follow behind her through the open doorway. “Come, Hoffmann. Let us give our young nurse the time she needs to get settled.”
“Thank you for putting up with me today, my dear,” he said as he headed out the door behind the housekeeper, grasping the handle to close it behind him.
Worry lined the corners of his kind eyes.
“You are a very nice girl. I’m sorry our trip was not easy, but we made it.
You are safely here, and everything will be all right now, yes? ”
“Indeed,” I told him, feeling the weariness of the train journey finally weighing upon me like a woolen blanket. Holy shite, I’m tired. The soft, hazy light in the room seemed to grow dimmer with every blink of my eyes. “I will take good care… of your… master.”
Mr. Hoffmann looked so sad.
Why?
Because I was so tired, probably. He’s probably wondering if he made the right decision in bringing me out here.
I wanted to quash his doubts about me, but my weariness deepened. Why couldn’t I rally myself? I was a better nurse than this. I just needed to shake my head and snap out of it. I’d operated on far less sleep back at the hospital. But I’d never felt this…
Groggy.
Oh, God. Can’t keep my eyes open. What’s wrong with me?
“She’s almost asleep,” a female voice whispered, but my vision was too bleary to see who it was.
Wake up, I told myself as the room shrank around the edges.
Wake up! Wake up!
WAKE UP!