Promise Me Tomorrow

“I promise, my little love. I promise.”

“Where’s Mama?” Marie Anne asked now, turning to her companion accusingly, “You said we were going to see Mama.” She had cried and kicked when he’d carried her from her bed earlier, until finally he had told her to be still, that he was taking her to her mother.

“We are almost there,” the man repeated glancing out the window.

Marie Anne looked out the window, too, and saw that they were approaching a large building. But it was not their home, nor even Mimi’s large house in the country or the tall white one in the City. It was a huge squat block of gray stone, far too ugly, she knew, to be anyplace where Mama was. Tears filled her eyes.

“That’s not Mimi’s.” For a little while, she and her brother John had been at Mimi’s home in the City. Mrs. Ward, Mama’s friend from Paris, had taken them there, and at first Marie Anne’s sad heart had lifted joyfully, thinking that she was going to get to see her beloved grandmother. But then That Woman had whisked them away, taking them outside and to another house, where the Awful Man was. She had seen him before, but he was not the sort who spoke to children, and she wasn’t sure who he was.

Then That Woman had fed her something and tried to give John something, as well, but he was too sick. She had left them in a room, with John twisting and turning on his bed, sweating and shaking. It had scared Marie Anne to see him like that; it had scared her to be there without any grown-up. But it was even scarier to be away from her big brother, traveling through the dark night with this stranger. Why had Mrs. Ward left them with That Woman? Why had she taken the baby, but not John and Marie Anne? Where was Mimi?

She began to cry, although she did not want to in front of this odd, jittery man whom she did not know at all. “I want Mimi,” she said, her voice trembling. “I want Nurse. I want Mama!”

“Later, later.” His voice was impatient, and he barely waited for the carriage to stop before he unlatched the door and jumped down. He reached for her, but Marie Anne backed away, her heart thumping. The ugly building loomed outside, and she was certain she did not want to go there.

“No. No!” The word ended in a shriek as he wrapped one arm around her and dragged her out.

She screamed and began to struggle. “Mama! Papa!”

He carried her inexorably up the front stairs to the door and banged the heavy knocker. It was some minutes before the door was opened by a scowling servant, and some time more before a large, stern-looking woman swept into the entryway, a dressing gown wrapped around her and a nightcap on her head.

The sight of her was enough to freeze Marie Anne’s sobs in her throat. She stared at the woman, ice forming in the pit of her stomach. The woman was tall and heavyset, with none of the beauty and warmth that lived in Marie Anne’s mother and grandmothers. This woman’s eyes were pale and cold as metal, and her face was grim, dominated by a predatory beak of a nose. She looked at Marie Anne as though she knew every naughty thing the girl had ever done.

“I found her,” the jittery man was saying. “She was on the side of the road, obviously abandoned. I didn’t know where else to take her.”

His words were enough to jolt Marie Anne out of her fear, and she cried out indignantly, “That’s a lie! I wasn’t on the side of the road!”

The woman clapped her hands together so loudly that both Marie Anne and the man jumped. “Enough!” Her voice cracked like a whip. “Don’t presume to correct your betters, child. You will soon learn that here you speak only when spoken to, and you do not contradict an adult.”

Her tone made Marie Anne’s heart thump inside her chest, but she squared her shoulders and thrust out her chin. She was not the sort to knuckle under without a fight. She thought of the way her father would ruffle her hair and chuckle, calling her his tiger.

“But I wasn’t by the side of the road,” she insisted.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I can see that you are going to be stiff-necked. Redheads are always trouble.”

“I am sure she will settle down,” the man said quickly, panic tinging his voice. “Once she has been here awhile, she will be all right.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” the woman replied with a faintly sardonic smile. She looked at him as if she, too, knew what he was thinking, Marie Anne noticed. “We shall take her. I am not one to turn away a soul just because she is obviously in need of improvement. We shall straighten her out soon enough.” The woman’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.

The man let out a sigh of relief and set Marie Anne down. “Thank you.”

He turned and hurried toward the door. Little as the girl had liked him, it frightened her to see him leave. Even he was better than this hard-faced woman.

“No! Wait!” Marie Anne shrieked, turning to run after him, but the woman hooked a hand in her sash and jerked her back.

“Stop it! Stop that behavior this instant!” The woman accompanied her words with a stinging slap to the back of the girl’s legs, bare below her skirts.

Marie Anne, who had never been struck in her life, whirled and gaped at the woman. The man hurried out the door, closing it after him.

“That’s better.” The woman nodded approvingly. “The children of St. Anselm’s do not act that way, as you will soon find out. The children of St. Anselm’s are quiet and obedient. Now…” Satisfied that she had set this unseemly child on the proper path, the woman looked her over. “How old are you?”

“Five,” the girl responded promptly, rather proud of her age.

“And what is your name?”

“Marie Anne.”

“That is scarcely a proper name for a child of your sort. No doubt you are that gentleman’s by-blow. Just plain Mary will do fine for you. Do you have a last name?”

Marie Anne stared at her. “I—I’m not sure. I am just Marie Anne.”

“Do you have a father?”

“Of course I do!” Marie Anne responded indignantly. “And he will come here and get me! And he will make you sorry!”

“No doubt,” the matron said dryly. “There are many children waiting for their fathers to come. In the meantime, we shall have to give you a name. Now, what do people call your father?”

“Chilton,” she answered.

“All right. Mary Chilton. That is your name. I am called Mrs. Brown. I am the matron of St. Anselm’s.”

“But that’s not my name,” Marie Anne protested indignantly.

“It is now. Do not contradict me. I told you before that that is not acceptable behavior.”

“But you’re wrong!”

Mrs. Brown’s hand lashed out and slapped Marie Anne sharply across her ear. “You will not speak to me that way. Do you understand?”

Stunned, Marie Anne nodded, her hand going up to her cheek. Never in her life had she been treated in such a manner. Even during the past few harrowing weeks, rocking about the countryside with Mrs. Ward and John and the baby, running from those bad people and having to pretend that they were Mrs. Ward’s children—even during all that, no one had ever raised a hand to her or talked to her in this way. Tears pooled in her eyes, and for a moment she wavered on the edge of bursting into tears. But years of aristocratic breeding came to her rescue, and she stiffened her back, gazing up at the woman coolly. Mama would say that this woman was déclassée, she decided. Papa, on the other hand, would say that what she had done was “bad form.” She clung to the words, hearing her parents in her head.

“Answer me when I speak to you,” Mrs. Brown snapped.

“Yes, Mrs. Brown,” Marie Anne responded dutifully, but her voice was chilly and carried all the humility of a duchess.

The older woman looked at her sharply but could not quite put her finger on what it was in the girl’s tone that raised her hackles. Finally she turned away, saying crisply, “Follow me.”

She led her up the stairs and down a hallway barely lit by a few sconces on the wall. The candlelight flickered and flared, casting strange shadows. Marie Anne felt fear rising up in her throat, but she pushed it back down. She could hear her Mimi’s voice the time she had gone running to her in tears when John and the boys were teasing her with scary stories: “Head up, my girl. Never let them know you’re afraid. It would give them far too much pleasure.”

Mrs. Brown stopped at a cupboard and opened it, pulling out a thin blanket and a folded brown dress. To the top of the pile she added a white petticoat, faded through many washings, a pair of rough lisle stockings, darned in several places, and an overly large nightgown. She handed the stack to Marie Anne.

“Here are your clothes and a blanket for your bed.”

Marie Anne looked doubtfully at the ugly brown dress. “But I have clothes. I like my dress better.”

The older woman cast a scornful glance at Marie Anne’s attire. “Your clothes are completely inappropriate. Far above your station. You are at St. Anselm’s now, and you will wear the dress I gave you.”

Remembering the stinging slap, Marie Anne decided not to argue. She merely hugged the stack of her new possessions tightly to her chest and followed Mrs. Brown into the room beyond the cupboard.