The Magnolia Palace

Chapter Six

1919

Miss Helen will see you at nine o’clock, Miss Lilly.” Miss Winnie’s voice rang out across the staff dining room.

Lillian twisted around from her seat at the table where she’d been finishing up her oatmeal so that Miss Winnie could see her lips. “Where shall I present myself?” she asked.

“Her sitting room on the second floor. Take the front stairs. East side of the house, second door on the right.”

“Thank you.”

She had thirty minutes to spare, so she decided to explore the house more fully. The south wing, where the entrance off the porte-cochère was, included a ladies’ dressing room, a butler’s pantry, and a dining room with windows that looked out to the park. The living areas of the house extended off at a right angle: the Fragonard Room, where she’d had her interview with Miss Helen, the living hall, and then the library. The door at the end of the hallway was slightly ajar, and she stepped close to peer in.

“No!”

She whirled around to find a maid standing behind her, an apologetic smile on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. You don’t want to go in there unannounced, I promise. You’ll have your fanny spanked right off.”

She had a wide face and a toothy grin, and Lillian couldn’t help but smile back. “Thank you, I was trying to get my bearings. Today is my first day.”

“Ah, the latest human sacrifice for Miss Helen, is that right?”

The idea unsettled Lillian, but then the maid laughed again. “Oh, your face! You are right terrified, aren’t you? Well, don’t be. My name is Bertha, I’m her lady’s maid, and have been for the past four years, so if you need any help you come to me. They put you in the room next to mine upstairs. I hope you couldn’t hear my snoring through the walls.”

Before Lillian could answer to the negative, Bertha took her arm and guided her up the stairs. “Let me take you around, show you the place. Back there, where you were about to go, is the art gallery and Mr. Frick’s study, where the master of the house can be found most hours. So keep out, all right? He’s a tetchy one. Tetchier than Miss Helen. Is that a word? Tetchier? Maybe, maybe not.”

She barreled on, seemingly unconcerned with the answer. “You already know the third floor. Bedrooms for the women staff are up there, along with the bathroom and a small break room. The south wing has a trunk room tucked into the southwest corner of the house, but be careful because the sloping eaves will leave you with a big bump on your head. And there’s also a linen room and the fur vault, which is kept locked.” She gave a wink. “I tried the door, that’s how I know.”

They made it to the landing of the second floor. “There are two elevators on the other side of the house. One is for servants and the other for the family. Along the south wing here is a breakfast room, a service pantry, and a small office for Mrs. Frick. Shhh, follow me. You have to see where she sleeps.” They both crept inside the most beautiful bedchamber Lillian had ever seen, every surface covered with silks of the most delicate rose and gray. If she slept in a room like that, she might never get out of bed. A portrait of a young girl hung above a narrow secretary desk. She looked to be around four or five and had the same reddish hair as Miss Helen, but instead of brash, bright eyes, the girl had a haunting sadness about her. The boudoir, on the other side of the foyer, was decorated with fanciful panels that reminded Lillian of those in the Fragonard Room.

Back in the hallway, she discovered she’d lost all sense of direction. “Is Miss Helen’s sitting room in here?” she asked, pointing to a door.

“No.” Bertha opened the door anyway. Inside was what had to be the master bedroom, finished in dark wood, which connected to a sitting room with a mahogany grand piano. “This is for Mr. Frick. Did you know he made his first million by the age of thirty? That means it’s too late for me. I’m thirty-four. Too bad, right?”

“What does he do?” Lillian knew it had to do with steel, but was unsure of the details. These were things she should know if she’d be working here.

“He made coke, which is used to make steel. He’s lauded here in New York as one of the richest men in America, but back in Pennsylvania, where I’m from, it’s a different story.”

Now Lillian was intrigued. “Why’s that?”

Bertha lowered her voice. “He was known to be brutal to any workers who dared to go on strike. And get this, someone even tried to kill him. A mad Russian anarchist broke into his office, and he barely survived. He was shot and stabbed”—at this Bertha made the appropriate gestures and accompanying ghastly noises—“and yet he lived. They said it was a miracle. But that was decades ago. These days he’s better known as an art collector than a union buster.”

“What are you girls doing?”

Helen Frick stood at the end of the hallway, hands on hips, a pink flush quickly consuming her freckles.

“Sorry, Miss Helen,” said Bertha, going pale.

She’d been so friendly to Lillian, the first person to do so in some time, that Lillian hated the thought of her getting into trouble. “It’s my fault,” she said as Miss Helen approached. “I opened the door thinking it was your sitting room. Bertha was just guiding me out.”

“My sitting room is on the east side of the house. Over here.”

Bertha shot Lillian a look of thanks before scuttling past her employer. Lillian followed Miss Helen into the proper room, unnerved at how much she might have heard. The sitting room had several glass-doored bookcases and a desk angled in one corner, with a view out a window that ran almost from floor to ceiling. The morning sun poured in.

The bookcases were stuffed with the collected works of Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, George Eliot, Edgar Allan Poe, and more, the handsome leather bindings gleaming in the sunlight. Above the fireplace hung another portrait of the young girl with a ruddy complexion and strawberry-blonde hair—similar to the one in Mrs. Frick’s bedroom—which Lillian was now certain had to be Miss Helen as a child.

On the far wall was a massive portrait of an intimidating older man: Mr. Henry Clay Frick, the man who built this mansion, and Helen’s father. In fact, his visage was scattered throughout the entire room. A posed photograph was propped up on a bookcase shelf; another showed him golfing. On the desk sat a smaller portrait, drawn at a slightly different angle from the larger one, framed in silver. His likeness overwhelmed the room, like a Frick-faced hall of mirrors. In the paintings, his white whiskers and thick mustache were as bright as snow, his blue eyes pale and guarded; in the sepia photographs, they turned a ghostly gray.

“Now, Miss Lilly, I have to see Mother downstairs, so I’ve left you an article on the desk about the house and my family to familiarize yourself with.”

“Yes, Miss Helen.”

She took a seat at the desk. The article had been written in 1915, a year after the house was completed. It mentioned that the Frick mansion was built on the former site of the Lenox Library, before it had been folded into the Public Library on Forty-Second Street in 1911, and how Mr. Frick had hired the architect Thomas Hastings to build a simple, conservative home for his family and artworks. Mr. Frick, it said, had strong opinions on the matter of his new mansion, and wasn’t interested in competing with his neighbors in terms of size or ostentation. Mr. Frick desired a comfortable, well-arranged house, simple, in good taste, it read. The result was a long, bungalow-like residence with a fine picture gallery, with plenty of light and air.

If this palatial manse was a bungalow, Lillian was Marie Antoinette. She stared up at the figure looming over her from the gilt-framed painting and stuck out her tongue. Mr. Frick might be worth millions and millions of dollars, but she wasn’t about to let him—or his daughter—intimidate her.

“What are you doing?”

Miss Helen had silently reappeared.

“Nothing, miss.” She pointed to the article. “Very interesting.”

“You have a funny look on your face, Miss Lilly. Is there something you’d like to share with me?”

“Not at all, Miss Helen. I’m eager to get started.”

“So am I. If I could bother you so much as to come sit at my own desk, that would be very much appreciated.”

Lillian jumped up, hating that she was allowing Miss Helen to boss her around so. She rarely had to tolerate this kind of snippy self-importance from the artists she worked for. But it was only temporary. She’d get the first month’s pay and be out of there before anyone could blink. That would show Miss Helen what it meant to abuse her employees so. Not that the woman would notice. She’d simply hire another one to take Lillian’s place.

Only a month.

Miss Helen began with the day’s correspondence. “You shall open all of my mail for me before I arrive, and lay it neatly in the center of the blotter, in order of agreeable to disagreeable. If it’s marked Personal or Confidential, open it anyway. It’s usually some salesman or social climber putting on airs to try to get my attention. Go ahead.” She handed Lillian the stack of mail and a heavy silver letter opener, which probably cost more than Lillian’s monthly rent. “Begin.”

She had just lifted the opener to the corner of the first envelope when Miss Helen gave out a loud yelp. “No! You can’t do it that way.” She snatched the envelopes back to demonstrate. “First, gather the letters, unopened, in a pile with edges even and all the addresses facing toward you. Then pound them on the desk on their left narrow sides. This means the letters have less chance of getting cut when the envelope is open. Papsie taught me that.”

It was all Lillian could do not to take the letter opener and jab it into Miss Helen’s neck. Could she last a month under this fussy tutelage?

Over the next three hours, subjects ran from the elaborate filing system for said letters, the preferred method for adding appointments into the daily calendar, and the inner workings of the accounting ledger. Miss Helen had just opened up the checkbook to show Lillian how to prepare a check for her father’s signature when a slight knock at the door interrupted them.

Mrs. Frick opened the door and stood in the entryway, one hand to her forehead. In a soft voice, she told her daughter that she couldn’t possibly make it to lunch today. “I have a terrible headache.”

“But you promised, Mother. Papsie wants us all to be together, including Miss Lilly. We can discuss his birthday dinner.”

“That’s ages away.” She nodded at Lillian and brightened. “Besides, now you have a helper, you don’t need me.”

“I have a private secretary, Mother. Not a helper.” She turned to Lillian. “This is Miss Lilly, Mother.”

Mrs. Frick gave a wincing, brief smile, as if lifting the corners of her mouth caused her pain. “Nice to see you again, Miss Lilly.”

Before Lillian could respond in kind, Miss Helen jabbered on. “The birthday dinner, Miss Lilly, is an important one with important people. We don’t entertain often, which means when we do, it’s written about in all the gossip columns. You’ll be in charge of menus, seating, all that kind of thing. I assume you’ve done that before, in your previous employment?”

Lillian gulped. “Of course. Many times. When is the dinner scheduled for?”

“The nineteenth of December.”

She would be long gone, and mentally filed it under Ignore.

As Miss Helen and her mother conversed further about the intricacies of whether Mrs. Frick ought to attend today’s lunch, Lillian studied the checkbook. On the left-hand side of each check was a drawing of a young girl in a white ruffled shirt. Miss Helen’s features were unmistakable. Even though the woman in front of Lillian had to be nearing thirty, her infantilized portrait was everywhere. No wonder she’d grown up to be such a spoiled creature.

Lillian looked at Miss Helen, studying her, then back down at the drawing.

“What?” Miss Helen’s tone was sharp.

“Sorry. I was noticing your likeness to the girl on the checkbook. Such a beautiful child.” A little false flattery couldn’t hurt. “Your father must enjoy seeing your image very much.”

Mrs. Frick gripped the frame of the door. “I must go.” She looked slightly yellow, like she might be sick, and glided away.

Miss Helen grabbed the checkbook and closed it. “Now look what you’ve done.”

“What have I done?”

“It’s time for luncheon. Papsie wants to meet you, and insisted you join us. But thanks to you, we probably won’t see Mother for a couple of days.”

“Why is that? What did I say that was wrong?” She truly didn’t understand.

But Miss Helen had moved on, and Lillian knew better than to inquire any further.

A surprisingly small mahogany table sat dead center of the generously dimensioned Frick dining hall. A dozen couples could waltz around the empty space if they wanted. Supposedly the table could be elongated for a dinner party, but right now, with only four places set, the airiness of the room felt cold and off-putting. Miss Helen had warned Lillian that her dining with the family was a rarity not to be taken for granted. “Since it’s your first day, though, Papsie insisted.”

Mrs. Frick, to Lillian’s surprise and relief, joined them as well, and was greeted heartily by her daughter. Mr. Frick entered just as the footmen brought out a creamy bisque soup for the first course.

The paintings and photographs scattered about the residence didn’t do the man justice. At nearly seventy, he was both imposing and magnetic, with fierce blue eyes, a neatly trimmed beard, and a massive torso. He walked with the energy of a much younger man, his eyes darting around the room, taking in a footman’s jacket that was improperly buttoned and resting briefly on Lillian when Miss Helen made introductions.

“I hear you’ve lasted a half a day under my daughter’s employ,” he said. “Congratulations are in order.”

Lillian had no idea how to answer him, but luckily didn’t have to, as he’d already turned his attention to his wife and daughter. “Where’s Childs?” he demanded.

“He stayed in Long Island, with Dixie.” Miss Helen turned to Lillian. “That’s my elder brother and his wife. She has three children and is expecting the fourth next month. They don’t tend to visit often, as my brother’s interests are very different from those of me and Papsie.”

“Fossils,” said Mr. Frick. “My boy likes fossils.” He gestured about the room with his spoon. “Here we are surrounded by the most beautiful works of art from the past, and he prefers grubby old bones.”

“He’s quite brilliant in the sciences,” offered Mrs. Frick, so quietly Lillian barely heard her. No one else seemed to, so Lillian gave her a quiet nod of acknowledgment.

“Are the grandchildren girls or boys?” Lillian asked.

“Three girls, so far,” Mr. Frick answered. “Let’s hope this next one is a boy. If so, they’ve promised to name him after me.”

“Now, Papsie, you don’t need a grandson to carry on the family name,” said Miss Helen with a petulant pout. “Haven’t I been happily in charge? Don’t I step in whenever Mother is feeling low? I really don’t see why Childs and his possible son get to be the chosen ones.”

Mr. Frick dabbed the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin. “You know you’re the chosen one. I do appreciate all you do for me, Rosebud.”

Lillian glanced over at Mrs. Frick, who stayed focused on her soup as Miss Helen blushed red as a cardinal. “Oh, Papsie.”

As if on cue, the two of them laughed with a forced hilarity, and Mrs. Frick joined in as best she could at the very end. Lillian got the distinct impression they were all performing some kind of peculiar family pantomime due to the presence of a stranger in their midst. If she weren’t here, she was fairly certain Mrs. Frick would’ve taken her meal upstairs, and Miss Helen would do most of the talking as her father sat in a somber silence.

“Miss Lilly, are you enjoying yourself so far?” Mr. Frick’s blue eyes drilled into her.

“Certainly, sir. I’m pleased to be here.”

Quite the understatement. Two nights ago, her bed had been a slatted park bench. Last night, she’d slept under the roof of one of the richest men in America.

“Whom did you work for, prior to joining our household?”

Lillian’s spoon slipped out of her grasp and clattered down on the rim of the soup bowl. Miss Helen had been so self-involved during the interview, she’d never managed to ask the most rudimentary of questions, and Lillian figured she’d avoided any further inquiry. Apparently not. “I worked for the Joneses of Albany,” she ventured, choosing the most generic name she could think of.

Mr. Frick frowned. “I’m not familiar with them.”

“They wouldn’t be part of your circle, I’m sure,” said Lillian. “Although they taught me a great deal.”

“Miss Lilly knows a thing or two about art as well, Father,” said Miss Helen.

“Is that so? Well, in that case, my love, your new hire appears to be a capable choice. You checked the references of Miss Lilly, didn’t you?” He had a twinkle in his eye, but Lillian wasn’t sure if he was teasing his daughter or not.

Miss Helen hesitated. “References?”

Mr. Frick was about to respond when a loud, musical crash sounded. The organist was back at it, and Lillian gave a silent thanks for the timing, as for the rest of the meal they ate in silence as the solemn strains of choral music reverberated around them.

The music and the meal ended, and Lillian braced herself for further discussion of her unseen, nonexistent references. But the conversation was forgotten as a young man bounded through the door to the dining room, a sheaf of papers tucked under his arm. He was in his early twenties, she guessed, with a boyishly beautiful face topped by a thick mop of unruly curls. He wore round spectacles under eyebrows that curved into imperious arches.

Lillian marveled at the gall of such an entrance, and expected Mr. Frick to roar at the impertinence, but instead, a huge smile crossed his face, transforming his gruffness into sheer delight.

“Archer, you fill our home with the sounds of the angels.” Mr. Frick took the man’s hand in his, giving it a good shake.

“I thought you might like Handel’s ‘Largo’ today.”

“I certainly did. And your ‘Ave Maria,’ simply spectacular.” The man beamed in response before glancing over at Lillian. “Excuse my manners,” said Mr. Frick. “I must introduce you to the newest member of our household: Miss Helen’s new private secretary, Miss Lilly. Miss Lilly, this is Mr. Graham, our music maker.”

Mr. Graham gave Lillian a wink, and all the blood rushed to Lillian’s head, leaving her swaying slightly. The physical response to his attention was like nothing she’d ever felt before, and explained Mr. Frick’s enchantment. With his long, tapered fingers and that untamed head of hair, Mr. Graham exuded a seductive mix of elegance and abandon. A musician with that much charm should be on the stage, she couldn’t help thinking, not tucked away in Mr. Frick’s organ niche.

“Do you have any requests, Miss Lilly?” Mr. Frick asked.

The only tunes Lillian knew were Broadway fare, which she was pretty certain would be met with utter disdain in this household. But as she scrambled for a suitable response, a flash of a memory came to her, of the sheet music sitting on Mr. Frick’s piano in his sitting room, when she and Bertha had popped their heads into his private rooms. “ ‘The Rosary’ is lovely,” she said in an offhand way, hoping that she’d remembered correctly.

Mr. Frick bellowed his approval. “One of my favorites! That’s it, good man, can you play that for me next time?”

Mr. Graham lifted his eyebrows at Lillian, sending another electric shock through her, before answering, “It would be my pleasure.”

After Mr. Graham retreated, Mr. Frick called for his automobile to be brought to the entrance.

“But we haven’t discussed your birthday dinner!” said Miss Helen.

“There’s plenty of time for that.” Mr. Frick rose as a footman glided over to help pull out his chair. “I’m off to the club.”

“It’s going to rain, Papsie,” said Miss Helen. “Bring your coat. You’ve had that silly cough for weeks now.”

“I’m fine.” He walked by Mrs. Frick without an acknowledgment, ignoring the weak wave of her hand.

Miss Helen turned to Lillian. “Quick, ask the butler for his coat. Bring it to the front entry at once.”

At Lillian’s urging, the butler, Kearns, was waiting by the front door with a black wool jacket slung over his arm by the time Mr. Frick was ready to go, with Miss Helen hovering right behind him.

“I don’t need that. It’s a hundred degrees out,” said Mr. Frick.

Miss Helen took it from Kearns and held it out, speaking to her father as if he were a recalcitrant child. “Now then, you must listen to me. I can’t have you falling ill, can I?”

Mr. Frick’s earlier indulgence of his daughter at the dining room table was gone. “Enough. Keep it. I don’t want to wear it.”

Outside, the chauffeur held open the door to a sleek Pierce-Arrow motorcar. Mr. Frick stepped inside the vehicle without giving Miss Helen a second look.

Lillian retreated a few steps, not wanting to get caught up in whatever strangeness was going on between the two.

As the chauffeur took to the driver’s seat, Miss Helen suddenly dashed forward and tossed the jacket through the open window of the back seat. “At least keep it in the automobile, you might want it later.”

“For God’s sake, woman. Leave me the hell alone.”

As the car pulled out, Miss Helen looked over at Lillian with a triumphant smile on her face. “There. That’s taken care of.” But as the car turned into Seventy-First Street, Mr. Frick’s arm shot out and tossed the coat out the window, where it landed in the gutter.

Miss Helen’s cheeks puffed out in anger; she looked like she was about to explode. “Get the coat,” she demanded of Lillian, pointing. “Go get it at once.”

Lillian half walked, half ran to the street and gathered it up. It had landed in a puddle, and she held it away from her as she turned back to the house so as not to muddy her dress. A beautiful coat, tossed like it was a piece of newspaper. She thought of the laundresses downstairs who would now be tasked with cleaning it, knowing that they’d be reprimanded if the master found it dirty the next time he called for it.

By the time she got to the front entry and handed the coat over to the doleful Kearns, Miss Helen was nowhere to be found.

Late that afternoon, Miss Helen was in a desultory mood, snapping at Lillian for not paying proper attention to whatever inane protocol she was teaching her, or suddenly collapsing on her chaise longue like a fainting maiden, complete with breathy sighs. Lillian didn’t mention the incident with the coat, and Miss Helen didn’t bring it up.

“God, this is so boring,” said Miss Helen from the chaise longue.

Lillian couldn’t have agreed more. While the residence no doubt appeared magical from the outside, the actual running of it was as mundane as that of any household: ordering toilet paper and laundry soap, making sure everyone was fed. Luckily, Miss Helen received very few invitations, and those she did receive, she preferred to decline, which meant Lillian wouldn’t have to deal with mountains of correspondence.

“Is this what you do every day?” asked Lillian as the clock neared the time for supper. Part of her hoped there was some other aspect of the job of private secretary that she might enjoy. Something, anything, to make the paperwork even slightly interesting.

“It is. Why? Is it not to your liking?”

She’d spoken out of turn. “It is to my liking, Miss Helen.”

“No, it’s a complete bore. The only thing that gets me through the day now is a secret project I’ve been working on.”

Lillian perked up. “Secret project? What’s that?”

In spite of it being “secret,” Miss Helen didn’t need any urging. She rose and led Lillian down the back stairs, past the closed door to Mr. Frick’s office. They’d both heard the automobile pulling into the driveway a little over an hour ago. Miss Helen had run to the window as if her beau were returning from the war, then sat back down at the desk with an inscrutable expression on her face.

Now, though, she was brimming with excitement. They kept on down to the basement, where a door led to a game room with a handsome billiard table. Beyond that was a long hallway of some sort. Lillian laughed with excitement when Miss Helen turned on a light switch and she realized what it was.

“You have a bowling alley?”

“We do.” Miss Helen gestured around. “Hardly anyone uses it.”

With its red-tiled floors, paneled walls, and vaulted ceilings, this was like no bowling alley Lillian had ever encountered.

“Would you like to see how it works?” said Miss Helen. “The balls are terribly heavy.”

Using two hands, she lifted a ball from a curved stand at the top of the lane, readied herself like a cat about to pounce, and then stepped forward, the bowling ball clunking clumsily onto the lane of gleaming maple and pine. Three pins fell in a loud clatter. Lillian clapped appreciatively.

“Usually there’s a boy down the end to send it back. You’ll have to do so. Go on.”

Lillian walked alongside the lane, then carefully lifted the ball from where it lay in a shallow groove. She started to walk back, holding it close to her belly, when Miss Helen stopped her.

“There’s a gravity-driven return system. See that ramp? Place it on that and watch.”

Lillian laid the ball carefully upon a narrow wooden rail at hip height and let go. It began rolling, picking up speed, traveling the whole length of the alley as if an invisible engine were propelling it. The effect was quite magical, and Lillian gave a little hop of delight once it reached its destination, right where Miss Helen had first picked it up.

Maybe if she showed enough enthusiasm, she could convince her employer to play a few games with her each day, to break up the monotony. “What fun! So you enjoy bowling?”

“Goodness, no,” sniffed Miss Helen. “That’s not why we’re here.”

Or not. “Then why are we here?”

“That.”

To the left of the bowling alley, under a series of archways, was a narrow passageway. Several trunks and crates were lined up along the far wall, next to a wooden table and chair. On top of the table, amid piles of documents and photographs, was a handsome leather-bound book.

“This is my secret project.” Miss Helen walked over to the table and opened the tome with great care, like it was a sacred text. “The boxes contain research materials that tell the history of several of my father’s very favorite artworks. I’ve been compiling them into this book, so that he has the provenance behind the acquisitions at his fingertips. Isn’t that marvelous?”

Lillian peered over Miss Helen’s shoulder as she leafed through it. The top of each page contained the name and artist and the date created, followed by a list of who had owned it previously, and then a paragraph explaining the worthiness or story of each piece.

Someday, maybe someone would compile a similar book of all of the statues that Lillian had posed for. Simply thinking about it made Lillian stand up a little straighter, even after what had been one of the longest days of her life. They’d mention how she got started, working for the famous sculptor Konti on the Three Graces, how she’d disappeared for a time, only to reappear as a star of motion pictures.

“Miss Lilly, you’re not listening to me.” Miss Helen threw up her hands in exasperation.

“Sorry. You’re creating a book about your father’s artwork.”

Miss Helen nodded. “It’s a gift for his birthday in December.”

“It’s remarkable. He’ll love it.”

“Do you think so?” Miss Helen gave a childlike smile. In many ways, she was quite witchy, but then, all of a sudden, the perpetual frown on her face would disappear and Lillian could imagine what she’d been like as a little girl, trying to cajole her mother out of her melancholy, or please her father with her intelligence and wit. What a lot of pressure for one girl. Her brother appeared to have taken the opposite route, finding an interest that had nothing to do with the family and then creating a family of his own. How easy that must have been for him, being a man, while Miss Helen was still living at home, unmarried, her life a prism of others’ needs.

“He’ll treasure it, I’m sure.”

Miss Helen looked so pleased with herself, happier than Lillian had seen her since they’d met.

“You ought to do this for all of his artwork,” said Lillian. “The home is to be a museum after his death, isn’t that right? That sort of compilation would be an asset for any museum.”

Miss Helen clapped her hands together. “I could do that. Why, I have all of the background material.”

“It would be like a library for his art.”

“Wait a minute, I have a very good idea.” Miss Helen was now pacing the room, hands on her hips. “What if I created a library for art history?”

“That’s what I just—”

Miss Helen spoke over her. “There’s a similar library in England, which I visited during my travels. I can base it on that. A library filled with books about art, a project of my very own, one that will live on after my father’s death, or even mine. I’m sure I wrote something about that London library in my diary. It’s upstairs. I’m going to go find that now. A library for art history. Brilliant, right?”

“Brilliant, Miss Helen.”

Miss Helen pointed at the table. “You stay here. Papsie’s book should be finished up right away so I can put all of my energy into the library idea. There are three paintings left—they’re listed at the top of the last three pages. Go through the trunks and crates and find any mention of them, and then fill it out in the book as I’ve done in the previous entries. And do try to match the handwriting best you can. No mistakes. I’m going upstairs.”

All of Lillian’s pity for Miss Helen vanished. The woman had a very short attention span, and now was on to the next thing, like a dog going after a squirrel.

Wearily, Lillian sat down and spoke through gritted teeth. The thought of being stuck in the basement for the rest of the evening, with no supper, rankled.

“Of course, Miss Helen. Whatever you need.”