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The Angel's Cup
--by Patricia Little
(Excerpt)
ISBN 0-595-09389-2 (copyrighted material)
Prologue
Anna's Diary - January 15, 1937
It happened today. My hands still shake as I write this entry. I must write it down now before someone comes.
I woke to a glorious sunrise this morning; a clear, sunny day made to tempt the angels down out of Heaven. I hadn't the slightest premonition anything was wrong. Just another ordinary day, I thought, and smiled to myself, for no day could ever be ordinary at the castle. La Cuesta Encantada, as Mr. Hearst has so fittingly named this place. The Enchanted Hill. I remember thinking how lucky I've been these past months to work here in the midst of unbelievable luxury, when so many are still without jobs.
I went about my duties, daydreaming a little about Cary Grant whom I'd just seen the night before, both on the movie screen and sitting several rows in front of me in Mr. Hearst's private theater. Still, he couldn't hold a candle to Mr. Winter, the most interesting of all Mr. Hearst's guests. With his fair, handsome face and quick smile, I thought Mr. Winter the most wonderful man I'd ever met.
How could I have been so horribly wrong?
The morning passed in a familiar round of cleaning up after Mr. Hearst's guests, making sure that my corner of the castle sparkled. Since every room in the three guest houses is occupied this week, I had to hurry through my chores to finish by suppertime. By early afternoon I was a little ahead of schedule.
I slowed my pace as I finished dusting the main sitting room of "A" house and paused afterward to look out windows to the broad expanse of hillside rolling down to the Pacific. It looked different from up here, as though the vast ocean was meant to be seen from this one spot in all the world. I ran my fingers over the satiny smooth surface of a table that I had been told was over 400 years old. Next I started cleaning the guest bath, though it didn't have a proper bathtub at all, but one of those French cascades, where water showers down from above.
It was there that Mr. Winter found me on hands and knees, scouring the marble floor. I hardly recognized him. His lovely face was white and stretched in an ugly grimace. I had thought he was only a few years older than I was, but the hard expression around his eyes made him seem suddenly ancient.
"Where is it?" He spat the words in my face and jerked me to my feet with shaking hands, his grip like iron. The scrub brush flew from my fingers and hit the wall, soapy water dripping down the tile surface. Water splashed on the front of his immaculate gray coat. I watched the stain spread, unable to meet his eyes.
"Somehow you knew what it was, didn't you?" He spoke to me as though I were hard of hearing, or dim-witted. As indeed, I must have seemed when I finally looked up at him in astonishment, for his words made no sense to me. The affable, gentle Mr. Winter that I knew had disappeared, replaced by this violent stranger. He shook me again and I felt his fingers digging into my arms. I couldn't have spoken a word to save my life, for I thought he had suddenly gone crazy.
"Damn it, girl! You've stolen it from my room! Do you realize what you've done?"
When I heard him say stolen, I almost fainted away. My hands went numb and I felt disoriented, as though the solid floor was tilting. I didn't know what had been stolen from him, but if he accused me my future would be bleak. Mr. Hearst hated dishonesty; he'd never tolerate a thief working in his home. To be sent away from the castle! Perhaps even to prison! I had little hope Mr. Hearst would take my side when his own guest accused me.
Mr. Winter must have seen my fear then, and judged me guilty. I could see it in the grim set of his mouth.
I found my voice at last, words tumbling out of my mouth faster and faster. "I didn't take anything from you. I did up your room this morning after you went out, but I took nothing, I swear. I'd never steal from anyone, Mr. Winter. I swear it!" Still he stared at me, implacable, his face inches from mine. I shrank before those cold, blue eyes. The silence stretched between us. I couldn't bear it.
"You've got to believe me!" I whispered.
"You're wrong. I don't." He pushed me away with an oath and left me there, huddled against the cold tile wall.
I sit in my own little room as I write this, filled with despair. I dread a knock on my door. Will it be the housekeeper who throws me out? Or perhaps the police will come from San Luis Obispo. Who will believe me?
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