The Magnolia Palace(31)
An incentive. Now this was getting interesting. “What’s that?”
“If my daughter is engaged by Christmas, I’ll give you a bonus of, say, a thousand dollars.”
One thousand dollars. An enormous sum, on top of her salary. But getting Miss Helen engaged to be hitched would take time.
Lying low in the Frick mansion had worked this far, so maybe it would be worth the risk to stay on. Worth the extra money, for sure. She’d be able to afford a first-class train ticket, and as many new clothes as she pleased. That way, she’d show up at the producer’s offices looking like a starlet in the making, not a boring private secretary.
As a model, Lillian had learned to be patient, and she’d have to tap into that skill in the coming weeks if she was going to pull this off. It was important that she carefully bide her time and wait for the right circumstances to align to make her escape, not pull the plug either too soon or too late.
“I promise I’ll do my best. Thank you, Mr. Frick.”
She would get Miss Helen engaged, collect the money, and be on her way.
* * *
“Oh, no, I can’t possibly wear that!”
Miss Helen grabbed the dress Bertha was holding in front of her like a shield and tossed it onto the floor. From the mass of frocks on the floor, they’d been at it for some time.
“Miss Helen.” Lillian assumed her disappointed schoolteacher countenance as she stepped around the sea of silks and lace. The tone sometimes snapped her employer out of an impending tantrum. “Why won’t that one do? It’s beautiful.”
“It’s the wrong color. I can’t wear mauve or pink.” She grabbed a thick chunk of her hair. “I’m a strawberry blonde, this will make me look like a giant tomato.”
Miss Helen often wore mauve and pink, but Lillian didn’t bother pointing that out. “What about the lilac one? It shows off your figure.”
Normally, Miss Helen wouldn’t think twice about her clothes. It was one of the aspects of her character that Lillian secretly admired, the fact that she put all of her energy outward, and couldn’t be bothered to cover up her freckles, which most women would do, or that her hairstyle made her look like a frump. How many hours had Lillian spent bathing in milk or smoothing olive oil on her skin? Sure, it was part of the job of being an artists’ model, but the obsession with whether or not she was showing herself off to her best advantage always weighed heavily. Miss Helen didn’t bother with all that. Sure, it meant she was a spinster at the age of thirty-one, but with Lillian and her father’s help, that could change, and fast.
The past week, Lillian had thrown herself into the preparations for tonight’s dinner party, a supposedly “impromptu” gathering of the Fricks’ friends and business acquaintances, but in truth an excuse for Miss Helen to be thrown together with the beau her father had chosen for her, a man named Richard Danforth. To be honest, the work had helped take Lillian’s mind off the Watkins murder. News of the case had been on an uptick lately, as Mr. Watkins’s lawyer had begun granting interviews to reporters in an effort to sway public opinion before the trial. “Angelica” came up repeatedly in the press, and Lillian gave another silent prayer of thanks for Miss Helen’s reclusiveness. She rarely had to leave the house. In fact, Miss Helen preferred to have her by her side most of the working day, as she corresponded with the art librarian in England for her project. This morning, for the first time in ages, Lillian had not woken up wondering what would become of her, whether or not the police would knock on the door that day and summon her off to jail. Instead, she found herself thinking of the roses she’d picked up for the centerpieces that were expected to arrive that morning, and making a mental note to check with the chef downstairs about the presentation of the caramel cake for dessert.
At first, organizing a dinner party for thirty-two guests felt similar to what a general might go through in planning an attack during wartime. The final menu, which the chef concocted and then defended madly against any of Miss Helen’s suggested changes, began with melons, followed by potage petite marmite, filet of sole, jambon de Virginie, and asparagus with hollandaise butter. He allowed the caramel cake for dessert only because Lillian spent a good hour smoothing over his ruffled feathers after Miss Helen bluntly rejected an upside-down pineapple cake, calling it “gauche and tropical.”
The invitation list was drawn up and sent around for approval from all three Fricks, and then changed three times over. Same for the seating arrangement, where almost every guest was moved about repeatedly on the large chart that Lillian had drawn up, other than two chairs, the ones belonging to Miss Helen Frick and Mr. Richard Danforth.
But now, watching Miss Helen fall apart in her bedroom before the event had even begun, after all of Lillian’s toil, vexed her to no end. Lillian needed the match to work. She’d already begun imagining a luxurious California lifestyle appropriate for a movie star, financed by Mr. Frick’s generous offer. Her reveries involved renting a bungalow with a swimming pool where she’d lounge after long days on set, acting alongside Douglas Fairbanks or Lillian Gish. While many girls might dream of such a thing, it was very much within Lillian’s grasp. Once she put her mind to something—acting on Broadway, or becoming Angelica—she’d always attained it. So far.
Downstairs, the guests were already assembling from the sounds of chatter rising up to the second floor from the main gallery. Cocktails and a viewing of the art began the festivities, before continuing down the hall to the dining room, where four tables of eight burst with roses and lilies set in heavy crystal vases. According to the schedule, which Lillian had tucked into the clipboard she’d carried with her all day—to the point that it had become almost another appendage—after dinner the men would retreat to the library and the women to the Fragonard Room, both of which had been dusted and swept, then inspected by Lillian before the tasks were checked off her master list.