“My husband said you had a baby. Boy or girl?”
“A little boy. Almost a year old now. Officially he’s named Alfred Homer Walton Phillips after his father, but who can call a baby those awful names? So he’s Cuddles to me, although Alfred disapproves of baby talk. Come upstairs and I’ll introduce you.”
She led me up a broad stair, to a luxuriously appointed landing and then up a second, less grand stair, chatting all the way, and then opened a door at the front of the house. “Here we are, Nanny,” she called. “Here’s your new charge.”
A plump elderly nurse appeared from a back room.
“Nanny used to look after Alfred when he was a baby,” Dodo said. “And now she’s come out of retirement to take care of little Cuddles. Alfred wouldn’t hear of another nursemaid raising his son.”
“Master Alfred is currently taking his morning nap,” Nanny said, putting a warning finger to her lips that we were talking too loudly. “And it looks to me as if this young man is ready for sleep as well.”
She took Liam from me and he didn’t protest, looking back at me wide-eyed.
“I will come up to nurse him about noon,” I said.
“Good heavens,” Dodo exclaimed. “He is not on a bottle? Don’t you find that terribly inconvenient?”
I felt them both staring at me as if I was some creature straight from the jungle, and blushed. “I don’t think I keep to your kind of social schedule,” I said. I turned back to the nursemaid. “I’m sorry about the state of his clothing. We were both left with nothing after the fire. So if he could possibly borrow some items from little Alfred, until I can shop for new ones, I’d much appreciate it.”
“Madam apprised me of what happened. I’ve already looked some things out for him,” Nanny said. “Don’t you worry. All taken care of.”
Dodo took my arm. “And my poor, poor darling. You’ve obviously lost all your clothes too. Never, mind. You and I will have lots of fun going through my wardrobe.”
“Oh, no, really,” I said, now feeling overwhelmed with embarrassment and emotion. “I couldn’t possibly borrow your clothes. How and when could I return them to you?”
She laughed gaily. “But I want to give them to you, silly. I’m tired of so many of my dresses, and one can’t be seen in public in them more than a couple of times or people start to talk, don’t they? Besides Alfred loves to show me off in new dresses. He’s such an angel. He caters to my every whim.”
She led me back down the stairs to an elegant sitting room where coffee and cakes were waiting for us. To have gone from bleak despair to this in a matter of hours was almost too much to bear. Dodo was the soul of kindness, trying to press so many items of clothing on me that I was mortified with embarrassment, feeling rather like the beggar at the gates.
“Really all I need is enough to tide me over,” I said. “I didn’t have this many dresses to begin with. My husband is only a policeman, you know.”
“But I want to give them to you,” she said. “Humor me, Molly dearest. Don’t you see—then I’ll have a splendid excuse to tell Alfred I have absolutely nothing to wear and he’ll have to increase my dress allowance.”
She had a maid carry armfuls to my room, adding shoes, hats, even a fur stole to the pile.
“I’m sure I’ll be able to go shopping soon,” I said, “so I’ll only need clothes for a day or two.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course you can’t go shopping,” Dodo said. “My brother says you must remain in complete seclusion so that nobody knows where you are. A matter of life and death, Molly.”
Privately I thought that the way Dodo chatted incessantly meant that she would probably divulge my presence to her friends. I could just hear her telling the thrilling tale of how she rescued the poor woman whose house was destroyed by a bomb. But I also decided that none of her friends was likely to have connections to an Italian East Side gang. However I did see her point about going shopping. The department stores that stocked the kind of clothes I could afford were on busy streets and there was always a chance I’d be noticed.
Later that day I was outfitted, fed Liam, then watched him and little Alfred crawling around on the nursery rug, eyeing each other with interest. As I stood there my gaze was drawn to a picture on the nursery wall. It was a beautiful girl of around eight or nine, sitting on a rock beside the ocean with a shell on her lap. She was looking out to sea with wide blue eyes and her light blonde hair blew out in the breeze. She looked so ethereal that it was almost like seeing a supernatural being. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled Sid’s mention of the painter Reynold Bryce. And Daniel’s remark, “Didn’t he do all those portraits of the angelic child, copies of which now grace half the nurseries in America?”