A million dollars. The sum was unimaginable.
“But why have I alone been pardoned? What about the others? Many of the women at Blackwell’s are there only because they don’t speak enough English to defend themselves.”
“Believe me, I understand the injustices perpetrated against the women imprisoned on Blackwell’s. I’ll explain later, at dinner, the reason you are free and they’re not. First, we have to get you settled and cleaned up. Don’t be offended, but you’re rather ripe.”
In another time, Sara would have been horrified at the thought. But she couldn’t find it in herself to feel embarrassed. She was free.
After taking a carriage that was waiting for them on the other side of the river, they pulled up in front of the marble-clad Fifth Avenue Hotel on Twenty-Third Street.
“Courtesy of the World, you are getting a well-deserved pampering,” announced Nellie. “And me, too, which I am looking forward to enormously.”
A crowd was gathered outside, what looked like newspapermen gathered in a pack. Nellie took her hand. “Ignore them, follow me, just walk right through.”
“Why are they here? Do they know who I am?”
“Everyone knows who you are, darling.”
A bellboy whisked them up the elevator to a suite on the top floor. The room was lavishly appointed, with a red silk bedspread and matching chaise, purple heart marquetry and Turkish rugs.
“This is for me?” Sara’s heart beat fast. The sudden change in her fortune overwhelmed her. What she truly wanted to do was to find Theo, but she’d never be able to leave without stirring up the reporters gathered outside.
“All for you. I’ll call the maid to run you a bath, and there are several dresses and underclothes to choose from in the armoire. Take your time and then we’ll go down for supper and I’ll explain everything.”
The warm, welcome buoyancy of the bath nearly did Sara in. Her hands were chafed and raw, and her limbs seemed like they belonged to someone else. Although she didn’t want to see her reflection, the looking glass was too tempting to avoid. The loss of weight made her eyes seem bigger, her skull a massive weight on a scrawny neck. She looked like a creature from a nightmare.
A maid helped her into silk underclothes and a fawn-colored gown. After the rough wool and calico of her Blackwell’s uniform, it was like having butterfly wings next to her skin. She sat before the mirror and let the woman put up her hair in a chignon.
When her soft touch threatened to send Sara into an emotional tailspin, she remembered sitting at the asylum and concentrated on her breathing. Air in, air out.
Nellie knocked at the door and smiled when she saw her. “Well, don’t you look a treat.”
“Can we have supper in here?” Sara asked. “I’m not sure if I can be out in public. I don’t feel like myself.”
Nellie shook her head. “You’ll do fine. I’ve booked a table in the corner, just for the two of us. This is a posh hotel; no one will bother you.”
Downstairs, Nellie led the way across the parquet floor to their table, and Sara sat with her back to the room so as not to attract any more attention than she possibly could. Nellie ordered their dinner and then dove into the details.
“After I got out, I did some digging into your story. Did you know that just a few months after you’d been taken off, another worker at the Dakota had been sent to jail for stealing from tenants?”
“Who was that?”
“A Miss Daisy Cavanaugh.”
Sara inhaled sharply. “Not Daisy. That couldn’t be.”
“Apparently, she’d been filching things for some time. They found a stash of timepieces, hair clips, rings, in her room. Like a raccoon, drawn to shiny things.”
“But they found the necklace I was supposed to have stolen in my desk drawer.” Daisy had been Sara’s one friend and confidante since coming to America, and they had grown even closer since the loss of the girl’s mother. “What if she was set up as well? I knew Daisy; she was a good girl; she wouldn’t have done such a thing.”
“She admitted it and is now in prison.”
Daisy had been upset when Mr. Douglas had not increased her wages after her mother’s death. But would she really resort to stealing from the tenants? And even worse, let Sara take the blame for her misdeeds? Unimaginable. But something else nagged at Sara. Their food arrived. Sara waited until the servers were out of earshot. “If Daisy did admit to the crimes, why didn’t anyone come for me, set me free?”
“The agent at the Dakota, Mr. Douglas, told everyone you’d gone back to England. The last thing he wanted was to set you free and have you make a fuss.” She took a bite of roast beef and moaned. “Delicious! In any event, he’s no longer the agent at the Dakota. Not after it got out in the papers.”
“What exactly got out?” Sara’s stomach hurt. She couldn’t imagine eating anything right now.
“It wasn’t enough for my own experience to be told. I also wanted to get you free, to right an injustice, and to do so, I had to write about what had happened to you.”
“What did you write about me?” Sara’s mind reeled. The affair, the baby. Nellie was an intrepid journalist, and she already knew so much. Sara had been brutally honest when they spoke in that dank cell.
“I’ll show you the story when we get back upstairs.” She caught Sara’s eye. “Don’t worry, I wrote that you were a good lady, a proper one, who had been tossed away and that when the real thief was exposed, no one bothered to release you from what was a cruel, terrible institution.”
“I see.”
“What’s even better, as a show of remorse, the new agent of the Dakota is offering you your job back. They need to get on the right side of the public, you see. So you’ll be reinstated as lady managerette as soon as you’re ready.”
Nellie’s face glowed with pleasure.
Sara began to shake. “I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t.”
Nellie reached over and covered her hand with her own. “No need to make any decisions right how. I imagine the reentry into regular life is going to be a difficult one, after you’ve spent the past seven months thinking all was lost. I was there for ten days and I’m still not sure which end is up. Sleep and rest and we have a couple of days of hiding out here until you decide what you want to do next.”
“I don’t belong here. I’m not of this ilk. It’s all too much.”
“Trust me, you’ll get used to it fast enough. Tomorrow there’s someone who wants to see you, if you’re up to it.”
“Who?”
“A man who contacted me the day your story was published. He said you’d want to see him. A Mr. Theodore Camden.”
Sleep came fast that evening. Sara collapsed into the down bedding and gave in to the warmth of the room, sensations that she’d only dreamed of at Blackwell’s. She startled awake at dawn, the image of Natalia crying driving her out of a deep slumber. How could she have left her behind? And so many others?
Nellie arrived an hour later, followed by waitstaff carrying trays of breakfast food for them, more than either would be able to eat. Potato omelettes, egg toast, biscuits. Sara’s eyes welled up at the gluttony laid out on the table.
“Don’t cry, please don’t cry.” Nellie sat back. “I need you to toughen up. We’ll take advantage of your fame and this will all be behind you before you know it.”
“I can’t imagine I’ll ever forget Blackwell’s. What I saw there.” For the first time, it dawned on her what a risk Nellie had taken by being voluntarily admitted. “Why did you do it? Did you know what you were getting into?”
Nellie spooned some jam onto a triangle of toast. “Not really. I’d heard rumors. But I’m not one to report on tea parties or the latest gowns from Paris. My editors know that, and I knew they would protect me.”
“Still. What if you’d been lost, like I was?”
“I was more valuable to my editors on the outside, exposing what was going on. They wouldn’t have dared leave me behind.”