The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  He remembered how glorious Annis had looked racing away from him on Dancer after his awkward proposal. Her seat in the saddle had been as steady and secure as any man’s, her hands low on the reins, her posture well forward, in perfect balance. She had lost her hat, and her hair had streamed in the wind, a dark, rippling flag of farewell.

  He was in love with Annis Allington. The embarrassing and shameful fires of lust had died down, thank God, but he still wanted her. Not her money. Herself, with her freckled nose and boyish figure, her cascade of dark hair, her forget-me-not eyes, her stubborn jaw, and all her rebellious, unabashed modern ways. Why in heaven’s name had he not told her that in the first place? It was far too late now.

  His eyes stung, and he had to look away. She would think, he hoped, it was the illness that reddened his eyes and rendered him mute. No doubt that was best.

  Annis told him she had sent a wire to her father while she was in the village, and that she had just received his response, delivered to Rosefield Hall by a boy on a bicycle.

  “I’m going to take Frances home,” she said. “That’s what I came to tell you, James. I wrote to Papa, and he has booked our passage to New York. The Majestic again.”

  “How will you manage, with your stepmother so ill?”

  “My maid and I can cope,” she said. “Velma’s strong and remarkably patient. Once we’re aboard, it will be simple.”

  “I wish you would stay until Mrs. Allington is better,” he said.

  Her expression turned somber. “Lady Eleanor said the same thing, but I don’t think Frances is going to be better. Something has happened to her mind.”

  “But just you and your maid… What about Mrs. Allington’s maid?”

  “Vanished,” Annis said. “She took two pieces of Frances’s jewelry and ran off yesterday. Probably back to Paris.”

  “Oh! Shall we summon the sheriff?”

  “No. Antoinette wanted me to give her money, and I didn’t have enough to satisfy her. It’s good riddance, truly. I didn’t care for her much in any case, and I don’t care at all about the jewelry. She’s welcome to sell it and use the money for her passage home.” She patted her hands together, as if dusting the issue away. “She will have no reference from us, of course.”

  James, so concerned about money himself, thought it must be very nice not to care about the loss of two pieces of expensive jewelry, but he didn’t speak the thought. There was no point.

  He let his gaze drift back to the rich green pastures of Seabeck and the tidy cottages of his tenants. How was he going to hold it all together? He had no idea.

  When he turned his head back to Annis, he saw that she had gotten to her feet and was standing with her left hand on her pearl necklace as she reached toward him with her right. “I will miss you, James,” she said, in a sisterly fashion. “And I will miss Lady Eleanor, and Rosefield Hall, and Seabeck. And most especially your Andalusians! Thank you so much for allowing me to ride them.”

  He took her hand in his and shook it. He wanted to press it to his lips. He wanted to say something, anything, that would stop her going, but no words would come.

  “I’ve tired you,” she said quickly, releasing his hand. “As I feared. I’ll come and say goodbye before we go. Rest now.”

  When she was gone, James closed his eyes and tried to pretend that his throat didn’t ache with sadness.

  37

  Annis

  The look on her father’s face when she and Velma shepherded Frances down the gangplank of the Majestic made Annis’s blood run cold. She and Velma had done their best to make Frances presentable. They had brushed and pinned up her hair and dressed her in her simplest suit and hat, though they had given up on her corset because she couldn’t stand without them supporting her. They had managed to pull gloves on over her nerveless fingers. She walked well enough, if each of them held an arm and balanced her between them, but there was nothing they could do about the expression on her face, or rather the lack of it.

  Her pretty mouth was slack, as if she couldn’t remember to close her lips. Velma had fallen into the habit of holding a handkerchief ready to dab at the little rivulet of saliva that so often dripped down Frances’s chin. Frances’s bright eyes had turned muddy. Her cheeks were hollow, as she ate only what Velma could get into her mouth and persuade her to swallow. Velma had proved to be very good at this, coaxing Frances to take nourishment as if she were a recalcitrant infant.

  Papa’s countenance was rigid as a stone sculpture by the time the three of them reached him, but not before Annis recognized his look of horror at the sight of his wife.

  She had become used to that look as they sailed from Liverpool to New York. She and Velma had all their meals brought to the stateroom to avoid the curious stares and the fuss of trying to manage the dining saloon, but even that didn’t protect them. The stewards gaped at Mrs. Allington’s blank features and slumped posture. A ship’s officer came by once, resplendent in his white dress uniform, to invite them to sit with the captain at dinner. He took one look at Frances and backed out, bowing and apologizing. The porters who managed their luggage in the train stations and at the docks were just as disturbed, although they did their best to hide it, and to avoid looking at Frances whenever possible.

  Annis had written to her father, trying to warn him, but the cold reality was a shock. Frances had left New York a chic, self-possessed, bright woman. She had returned barely human.

  There had been a moment, though, on board the ship. Annis was helping Velma with Frances’s nightdress when a feeling of shame filled her, making her heart flutter and her stomach sink. It wasn’t her own feeling, Annis knew. It was Frances’s emotion, one she had no way to express. Annis had put a sympathetic hand on her stepmother’s shoulder. It was heartbreaking to think there was no way to undo what had been done.

  They had docked under a burning August sun. The air of New York felt heavy and sluggish, almost too thick to breathe, as Annis steered her charge down the ramp, then left Velma to support Frances while she went to embrace her father. Their eyes met, but they didn’t speak. There was nothing to say.

  Not until they were in the carriage, with Robbie on the driver’s seat and the boxes and valises piled in the back, did George say anything beyond giving orders. “It’s worse than your letter said, Annis.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t know how to describe it. One day she was fine, and the next she was so ill we thought she might die. I hoped she might improve during the crossing, but now—well, now you see.”

  “Better she had died,” he said.

  Annis cast him a horrified look. “Papa! You can’t possibly mean that!”

  His features were still stony, showing no emotion at all. “Look at her,” he said in a low tone. “She’s as good as dead, isn’t she? Can’t speak. Can’t walk on her own. Doesn’t recognize me, or anything, as far as I can tell.”

  Annis could hardly breathe for the cruelty of it. She looked across at Velma, seated on the opposite side of the carriage, trying to keep Frances from slumping to one side. Velma looked no more anxious than she usually did. Perhaps she didn’t understand George’s comments. Perhaps she thought he didn’t mean them. Annis wished she could convince herself of that.

  Her father had not spoken his wife’s name, not once. He hadn’t touched her, either, but allowed Robbie and Velma to assist her into the carriage and settle her on the plush seat. Now he stared out the window as the carriage made its way through the city streets, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of his stricken wife.

  Annis turned her head in the opposite direction, watching the grand hotels and sprawling department stores flow by on the other side of the road. What would become of the ruin that was Frances Allington? Her stepmother had done this to herself, provoking Harriet into the battle that destroyed her, but that didn’t ease the pity Annis felt. She didn’t want what was left of Frances to suffer.

  In the misery of the moment, enervated by the thick hot air of New York
in August, a longing for Seabeck’s fresh, sea-scented breezes surprised Annis with its intensity. The second cutting of hay would be almost ripe. The Andalusians would be frolicking in their sunny paddock. Would the field roses have finished their bloom? She wished she could see them transform into the scarlet hips James had described to her.

  It was all terribly confusing. She had wanted nothing more than to be home again, and now she was missing Seabeck and Rosefield Hall. And James, too, but she shied away from that thought.

  She needed to see Bits, to bury her face against his warm neck, to feel him nibble at her shoulder. He would stamp and whicker, happy to have her home. She would examine him from nose to tail to assure herself he was healthy. When they were reunited, she would feel like herself again.

  She found her hands twitching in her lap, as if she could slap the carriage horse’s reins and make him go faster.

  Robbie pulled up the carriage at the top of the curved drive in front of Allington House. Annis stayed to see Velma and Frances on their way up to the front door, where Mrs. King was waiting, before she picked up her skirts and ran around the side of the house to the stables. She heard her father call after her, but she pretended she hadn’t heard. She couldn’t wait another minute to see Bits. The weeks of their separation had felt like an eternity.

  She could smell the stables before she stepped into their welcome shade. She gladly sniffed the scents of fresh straw and hay and sawdust. Careless of the hem of her traveling suit, she trotted to Bits’s box and leaned over the gate.

  The stall was empty. Sally’s was, too. Only old Tater put his head out over the gate to blink at her. Down the aisle Chessie eyed her with disinterest.

  She hurried to the paddock behind the stables. Bits must be there, having a bit of a walk, though the air was so hot and close. She would find him, bring him into the coolness of the stables, refresh his water trough.

  He wasn’t in the paddock, either.

  She heard the creak and jingle of the carriage coming up the lane from the house and ran to meet it. Robbie was climbing down from the driver’s seat, and when she saw his face, her heart clenched in her chest.

  “Robbie! Where’s Bits? Where’s Sally?”

  Robbie looked so sorrowful she thought he might burst into tears. “Sold, Miss Annis,” he said. “Mr. Allington sold them right after the wire came.”

  “Wire? What wire?”

  “The telegram,” he said, as if that would explain it. When she only stared at him, he added, “The telegram saying you was going to be married.”

  “Married? I’m not going to be married!”

  “Mr. Allington said you was, and so he sold Black Satin, and threw Sally in as a bonus.”

  “S-sold?” Annis cried. “Robbie, no! It can’t be! Frances said—We hadn’t—”

  Panic seized her. On a normal day she would have lent a hand with the carriage horse’s tack, rubbing him down, seeing to his feed and water. Now, with a cry of pain, as if she had been stabbed, she spun away from Robbie and dashed back to the house.

  She burst in through the front doors, pushed past Mrs. King without a greeting or an apology, and ran to her father’s office. The door was closed, but she banged it open without knocking. He was at his desk, his back to her. He didn’t turn at the sound of her precipitate entry.

  She shouted, so loudly he winced. “Papa! How could you?”

  He still didn’t turn. With a deliberate movement, he closed the ledger lying open on his desk. He didn’t pretend not to know what she was asking. “Her telegraph said you were going to marry a marquess.”

  “She lied!” Annis stalked over to her father and stood hugging herself to keep from bursting into childish tears. “I never said I would marry him! Where’s Bits? And Sally?”

  Slowly her father turned in his big leather chair so he could look up at her. His face was drawn. “Annis,” he said heavily. “I can’t worry about horses just now. I have to think what to do about Frances.”

  “What do you mean, what to do about her?”

  “Her maid didn’t come back with you.”

  “Antoinette stole two pieces of Frances’s jewelry and disappeared. Where’s Black Satin?”

  “I can’t manage Frances without her maid.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Papa! She has Velma, who has been wonderful with her. Mrs. King will find a regular nurse. I want to know where Bits is! I’m going after him!”

  As if he hadn’t heard her, her father said, “You should have left Frances in England.”

  Annis’s mouth fell open, and for a frozen moment she couldn’t think of what to say. Even her distress over Bits receded in the face of her father’s heartlessness. “Papa!” she breathed.

  “What difference would it make? There’s no point in her having made the journey. She’s—she’s like a dead woman.”

  Annis dropped her arms to her sides and gazed in horror at the father she thought she knew. His eyes, so much like hers, were the blue of winter ice on Azalea Pond. “Don’t look at me like that,” he growled. “It was her own idea to go, to get a title. Not my fault she got sick.”

  “You made me go along,” she said. Her voice was flat, and she deliberately jutted her chin forward. “You wanted both of us out of your way.”

  “It wasn’t like—” he began.

  She interrupted. “And now you’ve sold Black Satin to spite me. Who bought him, Papa? Where is he?”

  Her father put his hands on his desk and pushed himself up. She took a step back. She couldn’t help herself.

  He made no move toward her. “I’m not going to tell you, Annis,” he said. “There’s no point. The stallion is sold. I’ve been paid for him.” He gave a slight shrug. “I’ll give you the money if you want.”

  “Money!” she spit. “I don’t want the money! I want my horse.” She whirled in a storm of swinging skirts that spattered sawdust over the floor. At the door she cried, “I will never, ever forgive you! You are no longer my father! I am no longer your daughter!”

  It was an uncomfortable walk from Riverside Drive to the Dakota in the stifling August heat. Anger propelled Annis’s first hurried steps. By the time the gray bulk of the apartment building came into view, anxiety had taken over, and she was near tears by the time she was allowed into the main courtyard and ascending the corner staircase.

  She knocked too loudly at the apartment door, her muscles charged with emotion. The door opened almost at once, and a redheaded, much-freckled woman stood in the doorway. “I would guess you’re Annis Allington,” she said by way of greeting.

  Annis gripped her hands together to stop them shaking. “Yes, I am. You couldn’t have—I mean, you weren’t expecting me, surely.”

  “Not me.” The woman stepped to the side and gestured her into the elegant entryway and on into a high-ceilinged, spacious apartment. “I’m Grace, by the way, and very nice to make your acquaintance.” She shut the door and made a little shooing motion. “That way, if you please, Miss Annis. It’s Miss Harriet is expecting you. The Times said you and your stepmother would be on the Majestic this very day. I said surely you wouldn’t come so quick, not when you’d just arrived, but Miss Harriet was that certain, just knew you would be here. I know better than to argue, so I made some fresh scones, just in case, though I still wasn’t convinced, but here you are, and I know she’s eager to see you.”

  Annis barely heard the last words of this recitation. She found herself in a charming room, sparsely furnished, with tall windows facing the park. Two comfortable-looking divans faced each other, with an inlaid table between them and two straight chairs at the sides.

  It was such a relief to see Aunt Harriet turn from the windows and stride toward her, hands outstretched, that Annis burst into the tears she had been holding back for two hours.

  Harriet took her in her arms, and as she held her, she gave instructions. “Grace, a pot of tea, please, and your scones. Annis, dear heart, cry it out. You’ll feel better. Then we’ll get to work.�
��

  Still sniffling, but fortified by two cups of tea and one of Grace’s tender scones spread with fresh butter and fragrant honey, Annis followed Harriet into her herbarium.

  She felt instantly soothed, and the last of her tears receded. The herbarium was scrupulously ordered, with tools and containers neatly arranged. The room was long, with the high ceilings of all the Dakota apartments. The fragrance of drying herbs and beeswax candles tingled in Annis’s nose, and she wanted to know the names and uses of everything. Harriet pulled back the drapes on the window at one end, and the last sunlight of the hot afternoon fell across the tiled floor. Dust motes gleamed like gold dust in the light, spinning gently in the faint air current roused by the closing of the door.

  “Oh,” Annis breathed. “Aunt Harriet, this room—it’s magical!”

  Harriet smiled. The sun gleamed on the strands of silver in her dark hair, and her gray eyes glistened like well-polished silver. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “I don’t ever want to leave!”

  “It does rather give one that feeling, doesn’t it? But we must recover Black Satin, and Sally, too. I know where they are. We’ll need to persuade the buyer to sell them back to you.”

  “I don’t know if my father will give me the money if he knows that’s what it’s for.”

  Harriet’s smile gave way to a fierce look of determination. “Oh, we’ll persuade him, too. We already know he’s vulnerable to the Bishop style of persuasion.”

  Harriet, Annis learned, had been following all the news about the Allington family in the Times, in the Herald and the World and the Sun. She had seen a tiny announcement on a back page of the Herald about George Allington’s sale of a breeding stallion. The buyer had begun advertising his stud services already.

  “Is it—is it right, to persuade the buyer?” Harriet raised her eyebrows, and Annis added hastily, “Of course Papa shouldn’t have sold Black Satin without telling me! That wasn’t fair.”

  “No, it wasn’t fair.” Harriet put down the mortar and pestle she had lifted from a shelf. She put her back to the counter and folded her arms. “But we should talk about this.”