Annie's Stories (15 page)

Stephen bobbed his head. “Indeed. Wonderful tales. You could make money selling them, I would expect.”

“Truly?”

“If you would allow me to show them to my landlord, Mr. Alan Davis, I think he’d be charmed by them.”

“Oh. I will think about that.”

Aileen piped up. “I had no idea, Annie. My da said
 
—”

Annie held up her hand. “Never mind, Aileen. Best left unsaid.”

The lass sighed heavily.

“Why don’t you check on Kirsten, Aileen? She could probably use her tea warmed up.”

The girl stomped off upstairs.

“Mr. Adams, I’m not inclined to allow these stories out of my hands. They are precious to me. You understand.”

“I do. But they are tremendous. Would you consider bringing them around?”

“Perhaps. I will think about it.” She had hoped such a thing might be possible, but she had to do it on her own, and she did not want to reveal too soon that this idea pleased her.

“Give me pencil and paper, and I will write down the address for you.”

When he was done, she took the paper from his hand. “Lovely handwriting, Mr. Adams.” She thought she saw him blush.

“May I take a look? There are drawings as well, I see.”

She handed him one of the stories.

He studied the papers a moment. “Enjoyable.” He turned them over. “This . . . mark . . . Quite unusual.”

“Mrs. Hawkins thought so too. Just scribbling.”

“No. I think . . .” He brought a page closer to his face. “This appears to be the mark of Luther Redmond.”

“The British fiction writer? Certainly not. My father wrote these stories.”

Stephen turned the paper back over. “I see. His name was Marty Gallagher.”

“That’s right, so.”

“But this mark . . .”

“Perhaps he was just experimenting with Mr. Redmond’s mark.”

“I don’t think so. No one except British publishers knew what it was.”

“You know.”

“Only because Davis
 
—that’s the publisher I was speaking of
 
—told me about it when we were discussing the authors we’ve read. It’s an industry secret, but he confided in me since Mr. Redmond is now deceased.”

“Well, how did he know about this mark, or whatever ’tis? This Mr. Redmond. He lived in England, I think.”

“Davis is familiar with British authors because he distributes in New York for a London publisher. Early in his writing life, Mr. Redmond sold his work in many places, and this told the publishers it was authentic. It was a secret they did not let out lest someone try to pass off writings as his. But now that he’s deceased, Davis didn’t mind talking about it. And this mark . . .”

She shook her head. “Just happenstance.”

Aileen bolted down the stairs. “Come, Annie. Kirsten’s got a fever.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Adams.” She hurried upstairs.

Annie felt the girl’s cheek. “She’s hot. We better see if we can call Mrs. Hawkins.”

“She’s out playing Nellie Bly, remember?”

Stephen called from the bottom of the stairs. “Ladies, is something the matter?”

The girl was all but unconscious.

Aileen put her hand on top of Kirsten’s head. “She’s with child, ain’t she?”

Annie’s heart raced and she bit back the words she longed to hurl at her cousin.

“May I assist?” Mr. Adams shouted from below.

Annie scrambled down the stairs. “I think Mrs. Jenkins is away.”

“She is. She told me she would soon be traveling outside the city.”

“We don’t have a telephone.”

“Would you like me to go to Dr. Thorp’s house?”

“Could you?”

“Certainly.” He turned and dashed out the door.

Annie scrambled toward the back of the house and prepared a fire in the stove. Then she trotted up the stairs. “If you can get her to her feet, I’ll get a tub ready downstairs. That way we’ll get her into a tepid bath much quicker than waiting on the water up here.”

Some time later they were able to escort Kirsten downstairs.

Kirsten settled in, now alert and shivering in a galvanized tub full of water. They wrapped her shoulders in a green robe.

Not long after, Mrs. Hawkins came clattering down the hall. “What’s happened? Stephen Adams said Kirsten was ill.” She pushed past them and hovered over the girl. “Poor thing. We’ll have you better in no time.” She turned around. “Aileen, put coals in the bed warmer. It’s frigid in those rooms upstairs. And make sure there is lavender under the sheets.”

Aileen retreated and headed upstairs like an obedient soldier
going to the front battle lines. Thankfully the lass was bearing up under these stressful conditions. Annie never would have expected as much.

Annie and Mrs. Hawkins turned their attention back to Kirsten, who began groaning and holding on to her middle. A stream of red swirled in the bathwater.

18

W
HEN
S
TEPHEN FINALLY
arrived home, it was past midnight, rain had soaked his clothes, and an overwhelming cloud of disappointment over not being able to engage Annie hung on him like an eight-day cold. He hoped Mrs. Hawkins’s German boarder would be all right, though. He had done all he could.

He gathered up the stack of manuscripts Davis had left outside his door. After all the excitement, he would not be able to go right to sleep, so perhaps he’d look at a few.

As he slid off his coat, he realized there was something in his pocket. He pulled some papers out. Oh, dear. When he and Annie were looking at the stories her father had written for her, they’d been interrupted by the medical emergency. He must have stuffed the papers containing one of the stories into his pocket in his hurry to summon the doctor.

He smoothed them out on his lap as he sat on the couch under the electric bulb. Now he had the luxury of fully studying the tale. As he began to read, the beauty of the language and the compelling morality lessons expertly woven in amazed him. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

The prose was so descriptive Stephen could almost hear the animals chatter and feel the dewy ground they scampered on.
The intense green grass, bubbling clear streams, lumpy tumble-down rock piles, and massive, looming cloud formations made him feel he’d actually visited Ireland. But what was more, the truths taught within the pages nearly brought him to tears. Not many authors could do that. Certainly these had been penned by Luther Redmond despite what Annie thought. Her father had written under a pen name, obviously. Who knew why, but he had, Stephen was sure. An author
 
—an excellent one
 
—had a unique voice, and these stories, despite being written for a child, bore Redmond’s voice. Imitators of popular authors were easy to spot.

He glanced to the pile of manuscripts. Might as well take a look.

After Stephen had sloshed through pages of poor imitations of popular current novels, he began to wonder if the deal he’d made with his landlord had been worth it. Vampire stories that were nowhere near as compelling as Bram Stoker’s book and weak characters that could not come close to those created by Charles Dickens or Mark Twain. Dickens was uniquely Dickens. Twain was unmistakably Twain, and the imitation Stephen had just read, while a gracious nod to the famous writer, was nowhere close to his quality. Likewise, the tales Annie had were Redmond. They were probably the only stories he wrote for children, tales for his little daughter. Tales that just might give the Chicago publisher who printed Baum’s stories a run for his money.

Stephen used pages from the manuscripts Davis gave him to light his fire. The authors would get most of their stories back, of course, just minus a couple of the worst scenes. This, he thought, was doing them a favor.

No wonder Davis was frustrated. Stephen had found only one worth passing on to him, a romantic drama titled
Truth Dexter
by Sidney McCall.

But this Redmond tale . . . No, Annie made it clear she wasn’t ready.

He lay down and shut his eyes tight, thinking hard. He might not have caught Annie’s attention with his attempts to appear suave and gentlemanly, but what about those stories? He’d prayed for God to show him a way to get her attention, and he’d remembered that Scripture:
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
Right after that, Alan Davis had told him he was looking for a manuscript. This could be God speaking to him, telling him Annie had the perfect stories. And if those stories became popular, like
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
, with every mother in the country clamoring for a copy for her children, Annie Gallagher would thank him for it.

Before he turned out the light for the night, he thought about the postmaster. If these stories were what he thought they were, they’d make everyone plenty of money, and Stephen wouldn’t have to keep investing with Leonard in order to get out of debt. With suspicions growing in the office, it would be best to step away. He’d been tempted, foolishly. He would tell Minnie as soon as possible that he would not continue to invest. He should have trusted God and not been pulled into a profit gamble.

Before work the next day he would leave the McCall manuscript on Davis’s doorstep. He was sure he’d found a gem in Annie’s stories; however, he would need to persuade her.

The doctor had come despite the late hour, and before he left in his lantern-bearing horse-drawn carriage, he confirmed that Kirsten had miscarried. Now Annie feared they would lose Kirsten. It happened all the time, women dying from
miscarriages and childbirth. Annie had seen it in Ireland and on the ship to America. She’d heard about neighbors suffering such a fate in Manhattan. Grace’s mistress, Alice Parker, had developed a blood clot. There were many perils.

Annie couldn’t sleep, so she’d told Mrs. Hawkins and Aileen she would check on Kirsten throughout the night. She sat in the kitchen by the stove, her face in her hands. If Kirsten had only trusted her enough to tell her what had been happening with her boss, perhaps she could have done something. Women observed some kind of code of silence about these things, and that only led to bigger injustices like Magdalene Laundries.

Rubbing her face with her cold hands, she ached with the desire to feel her father’s touch again and see him gazing at her.
Oh, Da, tell me what I am to do here. No one wants me.
She desperately longed to hear her father’s voice, yet if she actually did, she would have no doubt she had gone mad. When she’d been locked in the laundry, she’d almost gone to that dire place where folks who have lost their minds dwell. Moving forward now, but still living as she did in a hollow place, had been only a wee improvement.

She laughed at her own folly. God wasn’t speaking to her. Her father could not. Her own mind defied her at times, waving dark, ribbonlike fingers toward the path to derangement. Annie had tried to convince Kirsten she was not a bad person like the lass was given to thinking, but why should Kirsten listen to her? Sinners of the worst kind ended up in these sorts of situations, didn’t they?

She returned in her mind to the place of despair.

She counted her breaths, in and out, in and out
 
—measuring the fact that she was still alive despite the wee space she’d been confined to for some kind of mistake she must have made. And
then she saw the doctor again. He strode down the hall holding a lamp. She sucked in her breath, praying he was not coming for her.

He bent low and held the flame in front of her face. “Oh, it’s you, little one. You are a soiled girl, aren’t you.”

She pulled wildly at her sleeves, which were too short.

He poked at her through the bars. Like a caged animal, she could not get away. He laughed. Then he . . . he unlocked the door, reaching out his long fingers. Just before he could touch her, a noise in the hall made him pull away.

A pain pierced right through her as she thought about that girl in the cage, waiting day after day, watching for him, jumping at every screeching metal door sound she heard. She had worked as hard as she could scrubbing floors and laundering sheets in that place, trying to scrub away the blackness in her heart so God would answer her prayers.

Only one person had thought Annie was good. And he was gone. God was too. Going on alone, without so much as a yellow brick road to follow, was proving more difficult than she could have ever imagined. If she never again observed the impact of abuse, as she was seeing with Kirsten, she might be able to put the past behind her. But this brought it forward along with a chill that crept up inside her like the transgressing fingers of a demon she could not kill.

Annie patted her cheeks with her palms, reminding herself she was in Hawkins House now. She stood and stretched, determined not to give in to self-pity. The house was so quiet she heard her own heartbeat. Grace had sent word earlier that she would be staying at the Parkers’ since she and Mr. Parker’s sister were planning Grace’s wedding trousseau. She did not need Annie’s help with her wedding dress after all. Just as well Grace had not had to witness this.

Annie reached for her book, the only way she knew to free her mind.

Aileen padded in on stocking feet. “She’s sleeping now. I’ll watch over her. You go to bed.”

An unusual gesture from her cousin, but perhaps this adversity had prompted a measure of kindness. “Thank you, Aileen. I know you don’t know her well. You’ve been thoughtful to help nurse her like this.”

Aileen shrugged and stoked the stove with a shovel of coal. “I know what ’tis like, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“To lose a child.”

“Aileen, nay.”

She turned to face Annie. “Oh, aye. It happened while Donald was at sea. I lost him and the child, likely on the same day, I suppose.”

Annie rose and embraced her cousin. “I didn’t know.”

“Sure and you couldn’t.” Aileen wiggled away and began straightening the bowls on the shelf above the sink. “Didn’t want anyone to know. Tried to forget it, I did. But then Kirsten . . .” Aileen spun to face her. “I often think I would have made a good mother, Annie. I do not know now if I will ever have the chance.”

“I’m so sorry.” Annie started to reach her hand out but then awkwardly pulled it back. Just because Aileen had revealed her pain, her cousin wouldn’t want Annie’s condolences. She had no reason to trust Annie with her raw emotions, and truly, trust was not something the two of them shared.

The lass began wiping the kitchen counter with a red-striped cloth. “Things happen in life. You know. You have to move on. Keep going. That’s what’s important.”

“I suppose ’tis. I am sorry for your trouble. I know what ’tis like to need to move on, Aileen.”

“I suppose you would, and ’tis a fine thing how you’ve started over here, Annie. I admire you for it.”

“You do?”

“Aye, but me? Trouble? Nah. I fared fine, don’t you know.” She gazed downward. “Please forgive me for saying you started that business with Johnny, Annie. I was a stupid lass.”

Annie took her hand. The irritation of having Aileen there began to cast away like falling autumn leaves. Annie never would have thought it possible, but she could see the sincerity on her cousin’s face. Perhaps that old code of silence was coming to an end. “Foolish, perhaps, Aileen, but that is all over now. Of course I forgive you.”

Aileen smiled, nodded, and returned to the mindless task of straightening crockery.

A quietness floated so long between them afterward that Annie didn’t feel right interrupting it. She went to the parlor, retrieved her writing desk, and padded off to bed.

The only way Annie could hear the voice she longed to hear was through his words. She took out the stories. Something was amiss. She counted the pages, then examined the titles. Omah’s story was missing.

Sighing, she slipped on her robe. She had been showing it to Stephen Adams when Aileen called for help. They had probably left it lying on the sofa.

With the mantel clock ticking through the silence, Annie searched the room. She even looked under Mrs. Hawkins’s chair, where they’d found one of them before. Nothing.

Maybe she had overlooked it. She returned to her room, looked inside the desk, and then shuffled through the stack of papers. It positively was not there. She would have to seek Stephen out and ask him about it.