Kate, I didn't want to wake you when I left. Margo and I are at the shop this morning. We don't want to see you there. Annie has agreed to lock you in your room if necessary. You're to take your next dose at eleven sharp, unless you sleep through it. One of us will come home at lunchtime. You're expected to stay in bed. If you ever scare us like this again…I'll threaten you in person. I love you, Laura.
Just like her, Kate mused, and set the note aside. But she couldn't very well stay in bed all day. Too much thinking time in bed. No, she decided to call it by its name: brooding time. So she would find something to keep her from brooding. Her briefcase had to be somewhere, she decided. She'd just—
"And what do you think you're about, young lady?" Ann Sullivan stood in the doorway with a tray in her hand and a hard light in her eyes.
"I was going to… go to the bathroom. That's all." Cautiously Kate finished climbing out of bed and ducked into the adjoining bath.
Smiling, Ann set down the tray and moved to fluff the pillows. All her girls thought they could lie when the chips were down, she mused. And only Margo was any good at it. She waited, her back soldier straight, until Kate came back in. Then Ann merely pointed at the bed.
"Now, I'm going to see to it that you eat, take your medicine, and behave yourself." With smooth efficiency, Ann fit the tray over Kate's lap. "An ulcer, is it? Well, we're not putting up with that. No, indeed. Now Mrs. Williamson has fixed you some nice soft scrambled eggs and toast. And there's herb tea. She says chamomile will soothe your innards. You'll eat the fruit too. The melon's very mild."
"Yes, ma'am." She felt as though she could eat for hours. "Annie, I'm sorry."
"For what? For being knotheaded? Well, you should be." But she sat on the edge of the bed and, in the time-honored fashion, laid her hand over Kate's brow to test for fever. "Working yourself up until you're sick. And look at you, Miss
Kate, nothing but a bag of bones. Eat every bite of those eggs."
"I thought it was heartburn," she murmured, then bit her lip. "Or cancer."
"What is this nonsense?" Appalled, Ann snagged Kate's chin in her hand. "You were worrying you had cancer and did nothing about it?"
"Well, I figured if it was heartburn I could live with it. And if it was cancer, I'd just die anyway." She grimaced at the violent glare. "I feel like such a fool."
"I'm glad to hear it, for you are." Clucking her tongue, Annie poured Kate's tea. "Miss Kate, I love you, but never in my life have I been more angry with anyone. No, you don't. Don't you dare tear up while I'm yelling at you."
Kate sniffled, took the tissue Ann held out, and blew her nose fiercely. "I'm sorry," she said again.
"Be sorry, then." Exasperated, she handed over another tissue. "I thought Margo was the only one of you who could make me crazy. You may have waited twenty years to do it, my girl, but you've matched her. Did you once tell your family you were feeling poorly? Did you once think what it would mean to us if you ended up in the hospital?"
"I thought I could handle it."
"Well, you couldn't, could you?"
"No."
"Eat those eggs before they're cold. There's Mrs. Williamson down in the kitchen, fretting over you. And old Joe the gardener cutting his precious freesia so you could wake to them. That's to say nothing of Margo, who kept me on the phone thirty minutes or more this morning, so worked up over you, she is. And Mr. Josh, who came by and looked in on you before he would go on to his work. And do you think Miss Laura got a wink of sleep last night?"
As she lectured, Ann piled toast with raspberry preserves and handed it to Kate. "That's to say nothing of how the Templetons are going to feel when they hear."
"Oh, Annie, please don't—"
"Don't tell them?" Ann said, with a fierce look at Kate. "Is that what you were going to say, missy? Don't tell the people who loved and cared for you, who gave you a home and a family?"
No one, Kate thought miserably, piled on jam or shame like Ann Sullivan. "No. I'll call them myself. Today."
"That's better. And when you're feeling more yourself, you're going to go and thank Mr. De Witt in person for taking care of you."
"I…" Foreseeing fresh humiliation, Kate toyed with her eggs. "I did thank him."
"And you'll thank him again." She glanced up as a maid knocked quietly on the open door.
"Excuse me. These just arrived for Miss Powell." She carried in a long white florist's box and set it on the foot of the bed.
"Thank you, Jenny. Wait just a moment and we'll see what vase we'll use. No, you finish eating," Ann continued. "I'll open this."
She undid the bow, opened the lid, and the room was filled with the scent of roses. Two dozen long-stemmed yellows bloomed against a bed of glossy green. She allowed herself one quiet, feminine sigh.
"Fetch the Baccarat, will you, Jenny? The tall one in the library breakfront."