The Sweet Far Thing

Page 133

“Do forgive me, dear Cecily.” My smile is as false as a street vendor’s remedies.
Cecily’s hands fly to her hips again. “Miss McCleethy!”
I rush to Miss McCleethy’s side. “Is it true? Have Ann’s cousins come for her?”
“Yes,” she answers.
“But they can’t do that!” I protest. “She doesn’t want to go with them! She’s not meant to be a governess. She—”
Something resembling true concern shows in Miss McCleethy’s hard face. “It was Miss Bradshaw herself who arranged for it.”
It’s as if Miss McCleethy’s words are spoken underwater. I can scarcely make sense of them, and a cold dread tightens in my stomach.
I run for the stairs and take them two at a time, Felicity calling my name and Miss McCleethy demanding order. When I reach our room, completely out of breath, Ann is sitting on her bed wearing her drab brown traveling suit and modest wool hat. She makes a neat pile of her halfpenny papers and the fashion magazine Felicity handed down. The program for Macbeth sits on top. Brigid tucks the last of Ann’s clothes into her suitcase.
“Brigid,” I pant. “Could I have a moment with Ann?”
“All righ’ then,” Brigid says, sniffling. “Close the case proper. And don’t forget your gloves, dearie.” Our housekeeper bustles past me, dabbing at her moist eyes with a handkerchief. It’s just Ann and me.
“Tell me it’s a lie,” I say.
Ann closes her case and sets it on the floor at her feet. “I left you the halfpenny papers. Something to remember me by.”
“You can’t go with them. You’ve a position in Mr. Katz’s company waiting for you. The world’s stages!”
Anguish shows on Ann’s face. “No. That was for Nan Washbrad, whose beauty speaks for itself, not Ann Bradshaw. The girl they want doesn’t exist. Not really.”
I throw her case onto the bed, open it up, and start unpacking it. “Then we’ll find a way. We’ll make it work with the magic.”
Ann puts her hand on mine, stopping me. “Don’t you see, Gemma? It would never work. Not forever. I can’t be who they want me to be.”
“Then be someone else. Be yourself!”
“Not good enough.” She twists her gloves in her hands, crumpling them into a ball and straightening them out again. “That’s why I sent the letter asking them to come for me.”
I think back to the night of Ann’s audition and the letter in her hands, the one she had so much trouble posting. She never meant to go with Lily Trimble and Mr. Katz. I sink onto her bed; her case rests between us. She puts her things back in and latches it shut.
“Tell me, then, what was all that trouble for?” I bite the words off.
“I’m sorry, Gemma.” She tries to touch me but I shrink away. “If I leave now, I can remember that day as it was. I can always believe that I could have done it. But if I take that chance—if I go to them as myself and fail…I couldn’t bear it.”
Felicity bursts through the door and blocks it. “Don’t you worry, Ann. I won’t let them take you.”
Ann pulls on her gloves and grabs the handle of her case. “Step aside, please.”
Fee opens her mouth in protest. “But—”
“Let her go, Fee.” I want to kick Ann—for not trying. For giving up on herself and on us.
Ann’s face falls into a well-trained mask that betrays no emotion. She might use that talent to thrill audiences from the world’s stages. Instead, she will use it to ease into the lives of her cousins so seamlessly that it will be as if she has never existed at all. And I see now that she might have made a good magician as well as an actress, for she knows how to make herself disappear.
Suitcase in hand, Ann marches down the stairs for the last time. Her shoulders are straight and her back is stiff but her eyes are blank. She’s even begun to walk like a governess. Down the hall, I can hear the phonograph playing, McCleethy putting the girls through their careful paces.
Mrs. Wharton waits at the bottom of the stairs with Mrs. Nightwing and Brigid. Mrs. Wharton wears a confection of a dress—beaded and feathered and overwrought. “Ah, here’s our Annie now. I was just telling Mrs. Nightwing how fond I know you’ll become of our house in the country. Mr. Wharton and I have named it Balmoral Spring, as Balmoral is so dear to Her Majesty.”
“What a ridiculous name for a country house,” Felicity mutters. “Have they never spent a spring at Balmoral? It makes one long for English winters.”