by Kirby Larson
Elva Finch launched off the chair arm and drew herself up to her full height. “Then the taxi fare won’t be too dear, will it?”
The Commodore sighed deeply. Women were entirely too much bother, no matter what their age. Successfully masking his irritation, he offered his arm to his guest. “Shall we go?”
Occupied by their leave-taking, neither Elva nor the Commodore noticed a movement behind the window drapes. As the door clicked shut behind them, a loyal tabby removed herself from her hiding spot and patrolled the room with purpose. Before she’d been overcome by a sneezing fit, Elva Finch had been unpacking her bags. Min nosed aside a letter postmarked Paris, from a Monsieur and Madame LeGarde thanking Mrs. Finch for finding them a daughter. The cat pawed through stacks of neatly folded garments, stopping to sniff a cook’s uniform tucked away under two corsets, three pairs of muslin bloomers, and a percale housedress in an especially hideous paisley print.
Min had no way of knowing that this particular cook’s uniform—obtained through a shady exchange—was issued only to women working for Isabella Woodard, whose exclusive Ladies Exchange provided help for all the best homes in the District of Columbia. And one of those homes happened to be that of President Taft and the First Lady. A president with a fondness for Terrapin Soup. (We are horrified at this detail as well you might be. The broth is such an unpleasantly turtlely shade of green, and one must take care to remove all of the reptilian scales. And then there is the problem of what to do with the shells. But who are we to question the gustatory preferences of a president?) And Mrs. Taft believed that only English cooks were capable of preparing the dish satisfactorily. Ergo, she frequently telephoned the irreproachable Mrs. Woodard to hire said English cook to prepare said Terrapin Soup. And, coincidentally, this was a dish planned for the New Year’s Eve menu the very next night.
Min did not know that, not any of it. But she did know that something about the uniform smelled fishy. And not in a good way.
Juice led Audie through the spotless stables, past one empty stall after another.
“Where are all the horses?” Audie asked.
A voice from behind her spat out the answer: “It’s those consarned automobubbles.”
“Aw, Daddy Dub.” Juice shook his head as an older man, resembling an oak leaf in late autumn, all brown and crinkly, hobbled toward them. “Times change.”
The old man squinted at Juice, jerking his head toward the White House. “Only one in that whole place I got any respect for is that nice Miz Jaffray. She won’t have nuthin’ to do with those awful things, either. I drive her to the market every week, sometimes twice, all proper. A brougham in the winter, and an open carriage come summer.” He nodded toward a pair of stalls across the way. “With Murphy and Selma in charge.”
Selma looked a little testy, but Murphy had such beautiful melted chocolate eyes that Audie couldn’t help asking if she might pet him.
“He’s my astronomer.” Daddy Dub grinned.
Audie stroked the horse’s long muzzle, running her hand down a long swath of coarse hair that ended at his velvety nose. Murphy snuffled, wrinkling his lips against her palm, searching for a bit of carrot or apple or sugar. “Astronomer?”
“Always got his head up in the sky.” Daddy Dub tapped Juice on the arm. “Like this grandson of mine here. Only I suspect Murphy’s dreaming of a nice big pasture somewheres and this one dreams of those infernal machines. And getting far away from this old man and this old city.”
Juice ducked his head. “I like it here fine,” he said.
“That’s why you’re counting the days till you’re old enough to leave.” Daddy Dub snorted. “Wants to go west, of all things.”
“Audacity didn’t come here to listen to a family squabble.” Juice broke a clean piece of straw from a hay bale, put it in his mouth, and chewed energetically.
“That’s some kind of name,” Daddy Dub commented.
“Thank you,” Audie answered, though she wasn’t certain she’d been paid a compliment.
Juice’s grandfather looked her up and down. It was only a quick glance, but there was something in it that made Audie feel like a horse being checked out by a potential buyer. Then Daddy Dub picked up a bridle and turned it over in his hands. “You shoulda seen this place when Mr. Roosevelt was in charge. Had so many horses, we had to rent stables nearby.” He picked up a bottle of neat’s-foot oil and a rag and began to rub.
“That stall over there belonged to Diamond, the president’s old polo pony. Big black baby, was Diamond. All the Roosevelt children learned to ride on him.” Daddy Dub rubbed more vigorously, warming to his topic. “Little Archie’s pony, Algonquin—where was that pony from?”
“Iceland,” Juice said. “He was an Icelandic pony.”
“Right. Sweet little calico. Though Mrs. Roosevelt didn’t think it any too sweet when those boys rode him right up into the White House.” Daddy Dub sucked between his teeth. “And didn’t those horses look sharp all decked out in Mr. Roosevelt’s blue? Rosettes on the bridles, on the footmen’s hats. It was a sight to see.”
“Cockades,” said Audie.
“Pardon?” Daddy Dub stopped in mid-rub.
“Someone told me they’re called cockades.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yessir, those were some salubrious times. Salubrious times.” Daddy Dub’s laugh faded and he shook his head sadly. “Guess it don’t pay to long for what’s good and gone.”
Audie looked around the quiet stable. Each empty stall must be like a hole in Daddy Dub’s heart. “When you described it, I could almost see the way it was. It must have been breathtaking. The horses all decked out. You all decked out.” She smiled and Daddy Dub stopped fussing with the bridle to smile back.
“How’d you meet this no-good grandson of mine?” he asked.
Audie gave Murphy’s muzzle another pat. “Oh, he was my knight in shining armor at the train station.”
“She got separated from her uncle,” Juice clarified.
Audie stared at her boots. She hated to mislead Juice. And Daddy Dub.
“Uh-huh. You don’t say.” Daddy Dub set the bridle down and stepped over to a sink to scrub the oil off his hands. “You two come on back to my office. We’ll have some tea.”
Tea was served with thick slices of gingerbread and lively conversation. Daddy Dub regaled Audie with stories of each of the past presidents he’d driven for. “One time, President Grant had to have this particular horse. Absolutely had to have it. Paid six hundred dollars for the nag, the durned fool.”
“The horse wasn’t worth it?” Audie asked.
“Horse was worth twice that!” Daddy Dub laughed. “Finest horse I ever did see. But Grant couldn’t rub two nickels together. President of the U-Nited States and he needed every cent of his salary to make ends meet.” Daddy Dub shook his head. “This is some kind of country, I tell you.” He laughed again, then took another puff on his pipe.
Somewhere in the distance, Audie heard a clock chime one. “Oh, dear! The time. I’d better get to the hotel. The C—I mean, my uncle, will be so worried.” She jumped up, brushing crumbs from her skirt.
“I’ll escort you,” Juice offered.
Juice was not as chatty as his grandfather, but the walk back passed pleasantly and they were soon in front of the Ardmore.
“Well, thank you for everything!” Audie stuck out her hand. Juice shook.
“There you are, Annie!” The Commodore barreled out of the hotel, inserting himself between Audie and Juice, grabbing her arm. “I’ve been frantic. Come along. Come along.”
As she was tugged inside, Audie cast a backward glance at Juice. His eyes did not say good-bye but see you soon.
After supper that night, when Daddy Dub had lit his pipe and Juice had polished off a third piece of Mrs. Jaffray’s mincemeat pie, they warmed themselves in front of the potbelly stove in their small rooms at the back of the stables. Daddy Dub used to live in the White House basement, in rooms off the
kitchens, like the other help, but once President Taft reduced the number of horses, Daddy Dub moved to the stables. “All kinds of space to stretch out now,” he had explained to Mrs. Jaffray. “I can do my chores without anyone pestering me.” He’d winked at the housekeeper. “Could hide out for days without anyone turning up to put me to work.” Mrs. Jaffray and Daddy Dub had shared a good laugh. Everybody at the White House knew that Daddy Dub put in more effort than most men half his age.
Full from supper, Juice poked around in the stove, stirring up the embers to add another chunk of wood. He fussed with the fire while he sorted out how to ask Daddy Dub’s opinion of Audie without giving away his own fears.
“You going to mash that flame right out?” Daddy Dub shook tobacco from a pouch into the bowl of his pipe and tamped it down. “Because these old bones prefer to be warm.”
Juice leaned the poker against the fireplace. “I was just thinking,” he began.
The old man lit his pipe, shaking the wooden match to extinguish the flame. “ ’Bout that little gal you brought ’round today?”
Juice had long ago stopped being surprised by his grandfather’s intuition. He nodded.
“You didn’t find her any too soon.” Daddy Dub took three puffs on his pipe.
Juice picked up a stick of cordwood. “What do you mean?”
“She’s going to need our help.” He tapped his pipe on the ashtray. “Pretty darned quick, too, ’cording to my rheumatiz. Best to keep an eye on her.”
Juice managed to load the wood into the stove without dropping it. How did Daddy Dub know such things? That was a mystery.
But it was no mystery that he was rarely ever wrong.
From her perch on the ledge outside a certain sixth-floor room at the Ardmore Hotel, the cat washed her paws after her evening meal. The many members of the Capital Audubon Society would’ve been heartsick had they known to what degree the avian population had dwindled since the cat’s arrival in their fair city. But the hotel staff was pleased to find fewer and fewer signs of mice in the kitchen pantries and service hallways.
The cat, being a cat, was unconcerned about the opinions of either group of humans. Cats, on the whole, find most bipeds extraordinarily dull. But this particular cat was rather fond of one particular human, now asleep in the room on the other side of the window glass. For the past two nights, the cat’s glowing eyes had kept watch over a slight girl who smelled of books and Sunlight soap and friendship.
A movement below caught the cat’s attention. She paused in her toilette. Despite the great distance, she knew the object in motion was too large for a mouse, or even a rat. She fixed her golden gaze, watching, watching.
It was another human. But not a full-grown one. In all likelihood, it was harmless, but she couldn’t tell for certain from her verticality. The cat stretched all along her spine, ending the undulation with a sharp flick of her tail. Soundlessly, she bounded from this railing to that fire escape to that peaked gable until she was four-footed on the street. She slunk from shadow to shadow until she was nearly upon the young human, who was apparently unaware of her presence. She studied him studying the hotel for an hour or more and then, as the streets began to churn with deliverymen and ash can collectors and others whose work requires early morning beginnings, the young human sauntered off.
The cat followed. Not because she did not trust the human. On the contrary: In him she sensed a comrade. But that trust had yet to be fully earned, so when the young human stopped, mid-block, looking behind him, unable to shake the feeling that he was being followed by someone or something, the cat ducked behind a spittoon. Her elegant tail flicked twice. The effect was to put the boy in such a fog that he ran full force into a lamppost, causing him to see stars. He wisely kept his eyes front and forward for the remainder of his journey.
The cat pattered behind him all the way to his nest, where he was greeted by another human, this one worn frail and rickety by age. The younger human towered over the older one, but was deferential—almost tender—in his actions toward him.
She lurked, well out of sight of the two humans, in the shadows of that place redolent of horses, before finding a satisfactory hiding spot behind a bale of hay. With the exception of her girl, most humans were so tedious and unimaginative. It was no challenge to hide from this pair. Min’s ears twitched at the clinking and clanking of their morning routines. The younger one whistled as he washed up the breakfast dishes. The older one used a kind voice and only that to lead two solid horses, their flesh quivering against the chill, outside. For their “morning constitutional,” he said. After man and horses and boy left, it was quiet in the space. Completely quiet. The cat did not even hear any mice scrabbling in the hay. Too bad. She would have enjoyed a snack.
Content that it was safe to venture out, to venture back to the hotel, the cat rubbed her side against the corner of the hay bale and delicately padded into the open.
She stopped.
There, not two rabbit hops from her hiding spot, sat a saucer of fresh cream.
She picked up one perfect white paw and licked it, considering. Clearly, she’d misread this pair of humans. Perhaps they belonged to the same tribe as her own girl. Odd that they’d never let on that they’d been aware of her presence. Curious, indeed. But the first thing every cat learns in kittenhood is the danger of satisfying one’s curiosity. This pair must have had their reasons for leaving her be. And for furnishing breakfast. Whatever those reasons, they mattered not a whisker to Min.
She nosed at the saucer. It had been ages since supper. And she was growing weary of a constant diet of mice and tiny fowl. She sniffed. The cream spoke of clover fields and wobbly-legged calves and a warm shaft of sunshine in a cool barn.
The cat hunkered down, closed her eyes, and lapped up the entire saucer of the creamy liquid, purring all the while.
Audie finished the fancy rolls and jam that Beatrice, the French maid, had brought for their breakfast. “Those were delicious.” She picked up a flaky morsel with the pad of her index finger and popped it in her mouth.
“It was—” Beatrice waggled her hand, indicating mediocrity. “Nothing like the croissants chez soi. At home.” She wrinkled her pert Parisian nose. “Not like Papa’s.”
“Did he teach you how to make them?” From a closer inspection of her plate, it appeared that Audie had gotten every last crumb. As Beatrice would say, Quel dommage.
Another nose wrinkle. “I did not inherit Papa’s cool hands. So of the necessity for croissants. But he said I was a pâtissière—I think you say pastry chef—par excellence. He permitted me to make the petits fours for all the village festivals.” Now Beatrice’s brow wrinkled.
“You didn’t want to be a pastry chef?” Audie inquired. There was such a long pause before the maid answered that Audie wasn’t sure Beatrice had understood the question.
“Ah, ma chérie. Sometimes we do not know what we truly want until it is far too late.” Beatrice removed a hairbrush from the bureau top and motioned for Audie to face the mirror. “But now, we must fashion the cheveux—how do you say it?” She tugged gently on Audie’s curls, asking for the English word.
“Hair.” Audie provided the translation, grateful once again for the Conversational French book at her bedside.
“Air,” repeated Beatrice with a nod. With a whisk, whisk, whisk of the brush, she parted Audie’s unruly locks, smoothing the front on each side into gentle waves and combing the rest of her curls into a soft, flowing tail at the neck. Beatrice caught that in place with an enormous navy-blue satin ribbon, starched stiff as a baguette. “Voilà! Monsieur le Commodore will be so happiness.”
Audie smiled. “Thank you, Beatrice. He will be quite happiness.” Underneath Beatrice’s crisp and proper uniform, Audie had discovered, beat a heart as true as Bimmy’s. In fact, our heroine was convinced that Beatrice and Bimmy would be best chums, should they ever happen to meet. A highly unlikely state of affairs. Quel dommage again. Audie twirled in front of the mirror
. “I look respectable enough to be presented to the Queen of England!” She jutted her nose in the air.
“Or the Maharajah of India!” Beatrice folded her hands into a prayer and bowed.
“The King of Siam!” Audie dipped one knee.
“The Archduke of Austria!” Beatrice curtsied.
“The President of the United States!” At this suggestion, the two collapsed in laughter, hysterical at the outrageousness of such a notion: orphan meeting president.
Their glee was abruptly disturbed by a sharp rap, which coincided with the door swinging open. Cypher inflated himself in the doorway, driver’s cap tucked under his arm.
“The Commodore is waiting,” he said. “If you are finished with your shenanigans in here.” He wore his disapproval like a badge.
Beatrice swept up the hairbrush and hairpins. “Mademoiselle’s toilette is complete.” She nodded, all business, to Cypher. But there was a wink for Audie as she turned to put the hair things away in the drawer. “What is the plan for Mademoiselle today?”
Cypher scarcely acknowledged Beatrice. “When such information is key to your services, it will be shared.”
Beatrice’s porcelain face grew prettier as she blushed. “Eh, bien. I shall be here again after the supper?”
He held the door and motioned Audie through. “Yes. After supper.”
Audie took offense for Beatrice at Cypher’s condescending tone. Imagining herself to be a personage whose importance matched her new frock and boots and hairstyle, she threw back her shoulders and passed, swishing to and fro, in front of Cypher. “Thank you, my good man,” she said in her most imperious manner.
Beatrice’s faint giggle traipsed after them into the hall. The Commodore was exiting his own room; Audie caught a whiff of gardenia through the open door. Her observational skills were put to the test as she took in the bouquets at each end of the long hallway. Vases burst with wintery holly and pine arrangements. Nothing of the tropical about them at all. But there wasn’t time to decipher this olfactory conundrum.
