Fade to Grey (4 page)

“Here, Miss, we'll skirt the library area and head up the stairs. All the guests are in the library now, since the meal is done. The men are having cigars and brandy and the ladies are having champagne.”

Donna couldn't very well tell Annabelle that she knew the layout of the house intimately. But she was curious about the guests and what they were doing. She'd try to catch a quick glance while they passed by. The hallway was quite long and the guests wouldn't normally have paid attention to anyone walking at a distance. At least this area of the house was better lit. She could now see a young woman seated at a grand piano, playing merrily away. People were gathered around her singing along loudly, some in key and some drunk enough that they were hanging onto each other for support. It was sort of like double margarita night at her favorite nightclub in Chicago. Like her girlfriends, they were humorous to watch. A large fireplace was at the far end of the library, with cheery flames leaping upwards throwing a bright glow over everyone. Everyone seemed to be dressed formally. The men were in tight fitted jackets with ties and stiffly starched shirts. The women had on long colorful gowns with various styles of hair, all long and held up with feathers, pins or sparkly do-dads.

“I’ll take you to your room, Miss, and see you settled, but then I have to get back to my chores.”

“Yes. Putting on a dinner party is always quite a job.”

She followed Annabelle up the stairs, past bedrooms and offices. She would have known the way in the complete blackness, but in truth, things may have changed from her modern memory. Her still painful ankle was a reminder of running into feed bags in the stable. The indoor carpeting wasn’t there, now there were throw rugs. Another maid appeared from one of the bedrooms.

“Rose! You startled me!”

“I was in the master bedroom,” Rose said in a sultry voice. “Missus Bradenton wanted me to set out a fresh towel in her room before I went back to the kitchen.”

Donna saw, even in the dimly lit corridor, that Rose was quite the opposite of Annabelle. Though she was dressed in the same plain maids clothing, she filled out the outfit with voluptuous curves. Some women just can't hide their femininity under any circumstances. Rose was one of them. She had a bolder demeanor about her, almost saucy. Donna had a feeling that Rose hadn't always been a maid. Annabelle might be fooled by her, but Donna wasn’t.

“Help me take Miss Bradenton up to the Crows Nest. Go to the linen closet and fetch some washrags and towels while I take her to the room and turn her bed down and help her undress,”

Annabelle said.

Help me undress?
The idea seemed strange, but she was wearing a lot of clothes. She’d better go along with it. It did seem a little creepy, though.

Annabelle led the way with her candle and they turned right and started climbing up some stairs into the darkness. Now they were on the third floor, a room Donna used to play in when she was a child. The furnishings were plainer; a wash stand, a double bed from the looks of it and some sparse furnishings. She looked around while Annabelle turned back the heavy covers.

“It’s late at night, I won’t go to the pump house until the morning if that’s alright with you, Miss,” Annabelle said. “Then I’ll fetch you some water to wash up in before breakfast.”

Donna sat on the edge of a red velvet couch. “That’s fine.” Suddenly, the events of the day bore down on her and she was very tired. Strange people and strange events were wearing her down. She reached down to pull off her boots.

“Let me help you!” Lilly quickly moved over to her and took her boot to pull it off. She then removed the other one and pulled off Donna’s stockings. “Here, I’ll unbutton you.”

By this time, Rose had re-appeared, with an armful of washrags, towels, and a nightgown. Annabelle kept undressing Donna from her outfit, carefully folding her clothes and placing them on a chair behind her. Soon, Donna was down to her bra and panties and noticed the two maids eyeing her strangely. She realized they were staring at her lingerie. Her store-bought panties and bra were quite in contrast to the outer clothing, which seemed to exactly fit into the time period.

“Here’s your gown, Miss.” Annabelle stood holding the gown for Donna to step into. Donna realized they were waiting for her to remove the last remnants of her clothing. She turned her back and slipped out of the last two pieces. She heard them gasp and realized what they saw—the large fairy tattoo on the top of her waistline. Too late now. She couldn’t hide it. For all their propriety and manners, apparently stripping down the skin for clothing changes or washing was normal. She took the gown from Annabelle and stepped into it.

“That will be all for the night, ladies. Thank you so much.” She turned to see the startled looks in their eyes.

“We’ll come awaken you an hour before breakfast, Miss,” Rose said. They turned and started down the stairs.

Donna settled into the bed and had to admit it was wonderfully soft, probably stuffed with down. There was a faint whiff of lavender as she moved the quilt. She would try to figure out a game plan tomorrow. Tonight she was just plain bone tired. Her last thoughts were of Royce and how kind he had been to her. He had the sweetest old-fashioned manners. It would be nice if more men were like him.

Donna was sound asleep and didn’t hear the maids climbing the stairs. The curtains in the room were heavy velvet and not a crack of light penetrated them. When they rounded the corner of the stairs, Donna halfway awoke, hearing their whispered voices. She thought she would play possum and pretend to be under the Sandman’s influence and perhaps pick up some information as to her whereabouts and the general household routine. Both the annoying stuffy smell of lavender lingering in the bedding and hearing the maids muted mutterings also meant she was still back in the past. Rats. This was not the way she hoped the day would begin.

“Look, I
know
something is odd about her. Did you see the tattoo?” Donna recognized Rose’s voice.

“Coo! Nobody has tattoos on their bums ‘cept pirates and heathens! Well, my brother has one, too, and he was a sailor.” That would be Annabelle. “I know, I saw it when you did!”

“Yes, but I saw it clearer. You have weak eyes.”

At this point, Donna emitted a fake snore and halfway rolled over to face the wall. Let them think she was still asleep and maybe they’d talk more.

“I wish I could have come up here last night to look at her clothes, but I was so tired from working the party. I wonder where she got them.”

Donna heard them just fine now, so her feigned sleep was working. They were whispering louder.

“She’s probably worn out, coming here from Chicago. Royce said he found her in the stable alone! What woman travels alone? Nobody, that’s who!” Once again, it was Rose. The chattering stopped. Donna lay still, hoping they would resume. She assumed they were picking through her clothing.

“Look at this thing! What do you make of this–this,
bust band
she had on last night! It looks like a horse girth. And so stretchy!” Annabelle must have been looking at her underwear, Donna assumed now. She heard the maids giggle. When did they invent brassieres, she wondered? She would have to explain that. She heard them snapping the straps, as silly school girls would. She thought perhaps she could start stirring so she could get some breakfast. She had no idea what time it was and wanted to be up before most of the general household. The best idea seemed to be flopping over onto her back and waggling an arm.

“Shh! Here now, she’s moving. Go get a quick look at her. Some things I couldn’t see good in the candle light last night, you know.” Once again, the bolder Rose spoke. Annabelle seemed to be the one to hold back on nosiness.

Donna kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut and steadied her breathing to lure them a little closer. She could feel the movement of air as they came closer to the bed.

“There! I thought so! Her hair has painted streaks in it! What on earth…?” Donna thought about the highlights she had applied on her last visit to the beauty shop. She thought the gold and bronze streaks were glamorous, but now they marked her as unusual and freakish in this time and place.

“I can’t see anything, you know I have weak eyes,” Annabelle said.

“They’re there. My God, I don’t know what they are—some kind of paint.” Rose was so close Donna could feel her gentle breath. She knew it was time to pretend to awaken for real. She gave a good long cough and halfway pushed herself up on her elbows.

“Oh! Miss! We thought we heard you callin’ out from downstairs!” Rose lied through her teeth, but Donna had to admit she had her cover story prepared.

“While we came up we brought you more clothing—we thought you might want to change into some fresh things!”

“That’s kind of you.” Donna rubbed her eyes, they were so dry feeling. She saw Rose staring intently at her face. At the same time she remembered her violet contact lenses. Better to remove them or have them question her eye color. They weren’t prescription anyway.

“Your eyes miss! They’re not the same—the color I mean. One is blue and one is pur—”

Donna saw Annabelle coming in closer. Quickly—she had to do something. She hoped her hands were halfway clean and while rubbing her eyes, plucked out the lens from her right eye. The left one seemed to be missing, perhaps she had rubbed it out and it was on the bedding. She pretended to squint and blink, all the while pinching the lens and hiding it in her hand.

“Purple? Oh no, my eyes are blue. It’s strange that you ask. Sometime they look different colors in different lights.”

“I didn’t mean anything, Miss. Just…I just thought you might have the pink eye or an infection. We could have Royce go to town and get you some tincture from the doctor.”

Rose certainly was persistent, Donna thought. It would be a good thing to keep her eye on her, until she got this time travel thing straightened out.

“Rose, I used to have a cat with different color eyes,” Annabelle spoke up. “You know odd things occur in nature that we can’t explain.”

Now, Donna sat up halfway in the bed.

“I’d really like to wash up,” she told the maids.

“Certainly, we'll fetch you a bucket of water in a minute. We have some boiling in the kitchen. We just wanted to show you the clothes we selected. Rose picked out a variety of sizes. You look to be sort of a medium sized person.”

“Thank you so much. Oh, and I found the chamber pot last night.” Now that was a fun experience.

Donna couldn't very well tell them she had got up immediately after they left and went into what was the bathroom when she last stayed in the room. However, it was simply a large storage closet, holding mops, rags, bottles of some kind of foul smelling disinfectant and piles of bedding. From the looks of things, this room was not used much and the closet was probably handy to store things for the second floor.

Yanking the curtains open to get some moonlight in the room, Donna had felt under the bed and found a chipped enamel chamber pot. Reluctantly, she used it but at least she got some relief. She would have to get used to the absence of indoor plumbing––either that or holding her liquid intake in the evenings.

There was a moment of awkward silence and she realized the maids might be hanging around to see if she had any more unusual body markings when she left the bed. Luckily, except for the streaked hair and tattoo, she had nothing else futuristic. She did have pierced ears, but that was not unusual in cultures around the world. She'd removed the contact lenses, so she could think of nothing else that might pique their interest.

“Er…we'll fetch your water, won’t we, Rose?”

For some reason, they wanted to travel in a pair, Donna figured so they could compare notes on their observations. Annabelle remarked to having weak eyes, and Rose might not have been the brightest, but she had street smarts. So be it, she’d watch her step around them.

Donna picked through the clothes and found what appeared to be a nice clean outfit. Long legged underwear, a kind of undershirt or button front bodice affair and a long sleeved white blouse seemed appropriate. Nothing had zippers, everything was buttoned or tied. The waistbands and collars were free of any tags. There were no union labels, no dry clean tags, or even sizes. She saw by the stitching that everything was handmade. She wondered when mechanical sewing machines were invented and had to admit she had no idea. The two maids hurried up with the water, Donna noticed. Her presence was probably the best gossip they’d had in a long time. So every minute they were away, she figured, they might miss something. She also had the feeling that they would not be passing the gossip along to Mrs. Bradenton if they cared to keep their positions. For that, she breathed a sigh of relief.

They had returned with a wooden bucket, a bowl of soft soap, some combs and hair pins. Annabelle filled the wash basin in the stand near the window and Rose stood nearby with towels. They waited until Donna washed her face and hands, and moved to her neck and chest. Since she had no deodorant, she soaped and rinsed heavily. When Rose handed her the towel to dry herself, she also offered a tin of talcum powder and a soft bristle brush. Donna took and dabbed the powder under her arms and thought it would be comparable to commercial deodorant. Rose also offered her a small bottle of cologne and Donna splashed it on liberally.
I’ll smell like the rest of
the household
, she thought.

Then she started dressing. She thought Annabelle and Rose would keep a close watch on her, and they did. While they tidied up and made the bed she caught their sideways glances. She sat on the edge of a couch and pulled on her brassiere then the under drawers and the under blouse the maids had provided. She pulled on some black stockings which had a nice soft feel to them. She picked up the blouse and put that on, buttoning the abalone buttons. The skirt was next; she buttoned it backwards, and then twisted it around so the buttons were in the back. Lastly, she pulled on some leather boots with no closures or grommets, just a straight pull on with a tab on the back. They were a bit loose, but she wasn't complaining.