The Switch
Annabelle Woodville, the only child of department store mogul Melrose Woodville, led a privileged life. She was the closest an American girl could come to being a princess. One of the wealthiest men in America, her father lavished on his cherished daughter the most extravagant and expensive gifts the Gilded Age had to offer. From fine clothes to toys, there was nothing the little girl lacked—nothing that is except a playmate.
Less than five miles from the Woodvilles' grand Fifth Avenue mansion, designed by renowned architect Stanford White, was the Mulberry Street tenement where Letty Van Der Linde lived in poverty. Given the two girls' disparate socio-economic backgrounds, there was no reason for their paths to ever cross. However, one warm day in late September 1899, fate, the cosmic joker, would throw them together.
* * *
Twelve-year-old Annabelle Woodville put down her French textbook and gazed out the window at the courtyard below. She longed to go outside and play, like other children did.
"Mademoiselle," she called to her tutor, "can't I please get some fresh air? I promise to do my lessons later."
Miss Bissette took pity on the child and replied, "Oui, tout-petit."
As the teacher sat at her desk writing a letter to her parents back in Paris, Annabelle ran down the grand staircase and out the back door. Since the courtyard was surrounded by high walls, there was no need for her to have a governess accompany her. In the years before the Lindberg kidnapping, children were considered to be safe from harm in their own back yards.
Annabelle sat on one of the iron benches in the garden and watched two birds frolicking in the fountain. At the sound of a breaking branch she turned and saw a human leg dangling from a large tree that grew beside the stone wall. A moment later, the leg, accompanied by the rest of its body, jumped down and landed on the grass of the courtyard.
A strange little girl, her face covered with grime, unaware of the other's presence, stood up and brushed the dirt from her torn dress.
"Who are you?" Annabelle called.
Startled, Letty stared in awe at the beautiful child, dressed like a princess from a fairy tale book.
"My name is Letty Van Der Linde, your highness," she replied and clumsily curtsied.
Annabelle laughed and said, "I'm not royalty."
"But you live in a castle," the destitute child said, looking up at the imposing mansion.
"It's not a palace; it's just a house. What are you doing here anyway?"
"I come here sometimes," Letty admitted. "I like to smell the flowers in the garden and walk on the grass in my bare feet."
"Don't you have a yard of your own?"
"No. I live in a five-story building with twelve other families. The only places where I could play when I was a young girl were the streets or the fire escapes."
"You talk as though you're no longer a child," Annabelle said, judging Letty to be close to her own age.
"I'm not. I'm twelve. I've been working at the glove factory since I was seven. Today is my day off. Since the weather is so nice, I decided to walk up Fifth Avenue."
"And trespass on our property."
"I don't hurt anything," Letty said defensively. "I smell the flowers, but I never pick them. Are you going to call the coppers on me?"
"Certainly not!"
"Thank you, Ma'am," the girl said, curtseying again.
Annabelle found herself drawn to the unkempt little girl, probably because she herself had no friends, just tutors, governesses and servants.
"Have you had lunch yet?" she asked.
"I don't eat lunch," Letty admitted. "At my house, we can't afford three meals a day."
"Well, you shall come inside and eat lunch with me."
The poor girl's eyes widened with wonder at the thought of entering the mansion.
"The servants are likely to object," Annabelle explained, "so I'll sneak you upstairs when they're not looking."
She opened the door and peeked inside.
"Come on," she called when she saw that the coast was clear. "You have to be quiet, and don't touch anything."
When Annabelle opened the door to her bedroom, Letty stood on the threshold staring in wonder.
"Hurry up and get inside before someone sees you," the pampered child ordered.
"Are you sure you're not royalty?"
"Don't be silly."
Annabelle looked at the other girl's dirty face and hands and pointed her in the direction of her private bathroom.
"Go in there and wash up while I have the maid bring up something to eat. And here," she said, reaching into her closet for one of her least favorite dresses, "put this on."
Letty, who lived in a tenement without running water, luxuriated in washing her face and hands with scented soap and warm water and then drying them with a soft, thick towel. She eyed the porcelain tub and wondered what it would be like to fill it with hot, soapy water and soak in it. A knock on the door broke her reverie.
"Are you all right in there? What's taking you so long?"
A moment later Letty stepped through the bathroom door, and it was her hostess' turn to stare in awe.
"It's incredible!" Annabelle exclaimed.
"What is?"
"Look and see for yourself," she replied, pushing Letty toward the large mirror above her dresser.
With her face freshly scrubbed, Letty bore an uncanny resemblance to Annabelle.
"If your hair was curled like mine," the latter said, "we would look like twins!"
Letty's eyes shifted from the reflection in the mirror to the tray of sandwiches and cakes on the table in front of the window.
"Can I have a taste?" she asked eagerly, pointing to an elaborate dessert.
"You can have the whole thing. I don't care much for strawberries and whipped cream."
While Letty proceeded to gobble up her cake, Annabelle spread her napkin on her lap and ate her sandwich like a lady.
"Have you ever read Mark Twain?" Annabelle asked after she had finished her lunch.
"I can't read," Letty replied.
"Well, he wrote a delightful story called The Prince and the Pauper. It's about a poor boy by the name of Tom Canty who looks remarkably like Edward, the Prince of Wales. The two decide it might be fun to temporarily switch places. They swap clothes, and Edward learns what it's like to live outside the palace, and Tom learns what it's like to be a prince."
"I'd say Tom definitely got the better of that deal!" Letty exclaimed.
"Why do you say that?"
"I'm sure if Edward was a prince, he'd have every luxury a person could want: plenty of food to eat, lots of nice clothes to wear, a warm place to sleep—just like you."
"Maybe I look at you and wish I didn't have to spend my days learning French, writing essays, studying history and practicing etiquette. I think it would be fun to get dirty climbing a tree. Or maybe I would scale a wall and sneak onto someone else's property."
"Then maybe we ought to switch places just like the prince and the pauper in that book did," Letty said in jest.
"Yes! Why don't we?" Annabelle enthusiastically suggested.
"I was only kidding. We can't really change places."
"Why not? I could get Mademoiselle Bissette's curling iron and make your hair look like mine. No one will ever be able to tell us apart."
"And how do I explain to your tutors that I can't read?"
"Yes, that might be a problem. I suppose you don't speak French either."
"I have a hard enough time speaking good English!"
"You could say you're not feeling well, and then you'll be excused from your lessons. That always works for me, at least for a few days anyway. By that time, we'll go back to being who we really are."
"It'll never work," Letty argued.
"Wouldn't it be fun?" Annabelle persisted. "You can sleep in my bed, wear my clothes and play with my China dolls. The servants will do just about everything you ask of them, including making you strawberry shortcakes, chocolate cream pies, lemon tarts and ...."
"All right! We'll do it for one day."
"A week."
"Two days."
"Three," countered Annabelle, whose negotiating skills rivaled her father's.
"It's a deal," Letty agreed, offering a handshake to seal the pact.
* * *
Annabelle waited until evening when the staff was eating dinner to sneak outside into the courtyard and, with her new friend's help, scale the wall and climb the tree.
"Remember, be back here in three days," Letty reminded her.
"I promise. Have fun!"
"You, too."
When she was called down to the dining room to eat dinner, the little girl from Mulberry Street feared she would be found out. How could Annabelle's parents mistake her for their own child? When she walked into the room, however, she saw the table was set for only one.
The girl's mother, she soon learned, had died two years earlier, and Melrose Woodville was never home from work in time to eat dinner with his daughter. Furthermore, the servants who waited the table noticed no difference.
This might work after all, she thought happily as she dug into a chocolate sundae for dessert.
Kitty O'Dwyer, the girl's governess, however, was not as easy to fool.
"Are you feeling all right, Annabelle?" Kitty asked. "You don't look well."
"As a matter of fact, I think I'm coming down with something," Letty lied and produced a fake cough. "My throat is scratchy, and my chest feels congested."
"What you need is a hot bath and a good night's sleep."
Later that night Letty, dressed in one of Annabelle's lace-adorned, pink flannel nightgowns, lay on the bed beneath an heirloom quilt, resting her head on a down pillow.
Maybe I should have agreed to a week, she thought with a smile and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
After making her way through her neighbor's yard to Fifth Avenue, Annabelle walked as quickly as possible away from her house. She did not want anyone inside to recognize her. Little did she realize that they would see Letty's dirty, ragged dress and look no further.
Although she had often driven down the Avenue in her father's carriage, she was always in the company of her governess. Being free to explore the neighborhood on her own, she found it much more enjoyable, if a little intimidating.
Her first stop was Greenhill's Sweet Shop. Annabelle stood outside the store, looking at the display of candies in the storefront window. Suddenly, Mrs. Greenhill, the proprietor, came running outside and shooed her away.
"Why do I have to leave?" Annabelle demanded to know. "I've not done anything wrong. I'm only looking at your chocolates."
"Be gone with you, you ragamuffin! You'll chase my paying customers away."
"You wait until I tell my father about how you treated me," the girl said haughtily. "He'll take his business elsewhere."
"Away with you, now!" Mrs. Greenhill shouted. "As if a father of someone the likes of you could afford to shop on Fifth Avenue."
Annabelle realized that the shopkeeper was reacting not to the girl herself but to the clothes she wore. Other store owners behaved in much the same way. No one wanted a street urchin on their property. Not only were the little beggars likely to make potential customers feel uncomfortable, but they were also likely to steal.
"Show me a child in rags," one merchant said, "and I'll show you a skilled pickpocket."
Having been chased away from at least a dozen stores, Annabelle crossed Fifth Avenue and headed into Central Park. There was no sanctuary to be found there, however. A suspicious policeman demanded to know where she lived and why she was not in school or at work.
"I don't go to school," she replied, repeating the story Letty Van Der Linde had told her. "I work in a glove factory, but today's my day off."
"And just where is this factory located?"
"I ... I ...."
Thankfully, Annabelle could always think quickly.
"I'm not ... feeling well. I ...."
She faked a faint, and the policeman caught her before she hit the ground.
"I want to go home."
"And where is that?"
"Mulberry Street," she replied.
"Get a move on then," the cop said gruffly.
Annabelle quickly exited the park, and stood on Fifth Avenue, unsure which way to turn since she had no way of knowing where Mulberry Street was.
* * *
When Miss Bissette left Annabelle's bedroom the next day, she immediately went in search of Kitty O'Dwyer.
"I think there is something seriously wrong with our little charge," the young Frenchwoman told the governess.
"She's just got a cold. Nothing to be concerned about."
"No, it's far worse than that. I spoke to her in French as I always do, and she didn't understand a word I said."
"She was probably pretending."
"That's not all. She's seemed to have forgotten how to read."
Kitty turned worried eyes in the tutor's direction.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."
"Could there be a physical cause like a bump on the head or do you think she's having mental problems?"
"I don't know. I'm not a doctor."
"I notice she's lost weight. Her clothes are at least a full size too big for her. I suppose we'll have to tell her father."
Miss Bissette paled.
"If there is something wrong with the girl, he might put the blame on one of us."
"Why?" Kitty asked. "We haven't done anything to harm her."
"It is our job to take care of her. If he finds out she's doing poorly, one or both of us is likely to get discharged. Maybe we should wait before we say anything to him."
"Yes. I agree. She seems to be well enough now. You should have seen how much she ate for dinner last night. She was shoveling the food in her mouth like a longshoreman!"
"And I can always teach her to read again. And as for French ...."
"Let's face it," the governess said. "By her eighteenth birthday she'll be engaged to a rich banker and eventually she'll inherit her father's millions. It's not as though a lack of education will do her any harm!"
* * *
Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped drastically. Annabelle, who was clad in Letty's thin cotton dress, began to shiver. Not only was she cold, but she was also hungry, and her feet were hurting. She had walked from Fifth Avenue to Mulberry Street, yet she had no idea what building the Van Der Lindes lived in.
I wish I could go home, she thought, getting no enjoyment from her little adventure.
As she continued to walk down Mulberry Street, she noticed the deplorable conditions of the tenements. Having led a sheltered life since she was born, this was her first exposure to poverty, and she did not like it one bit!
She walked for another four blocks and then, exhausted, sat down on the curb and began to cry.
"There you are!" she heard a woman hollering several minutes later. "I've been calling for you for close to an hour. Where the hell have you been?"
It was only when she was roughly yanked to her feet by the arm that Annabelle realized the woman was speaking to her.
"What have you done to your hair?"
"My friend curled it for me."
"Well, la-di-da!" Letty's mother said and then slapped the girl's bottom. "Get home, now! Do you hear me?"
Annabelle followed the woman into a building that was overcrowded and dirty. She gagged at the odor of garbage and human waste that lingered in the rooms.
How will I be able to eat anything with this smell? she thought.
She need not have been concerned since Mrs. Van Der Linde insisted she go to bed without her supper.
"That will teach you to come home late!" the woman yelled.
"But I'm hungry," Annabelle protested. "I haven't eaten anything all day!"
Slap!
The girl was stunned not only by the force of the blow but by the act itself. No one had ever stuck her before.
"Don't answer me back," the harpy screamed. "Get to bed now or you'll go without eating again tomorrow."
As Annabelle washed her face and hands with cold water poured into a chipped basin, she thought longingly of her claw foot tub. How good it would feel to soak in a hot bubble bath!
Mark Twain be damned! she thought. I hate being a pauper. If I've learned one lesson from all of this, it's that money is the most important thing in the world!
The following morning Annabelle was to receive another lesson in why the poor were different from the rich. She was rudely awakened just before dawn by Letty's shrew of a mother and told to begin her chores. With nothing but a slice of stale bread and a cup of goat's milk for breakfast, she was expected to clean the house and do laundry before she went to her job at the glove factory.
"Don't dawdle, girl!" Mrs. Van Der Linde would cry whenever Annabelle stopped for a rest. "You haven't got all day!"
Sometimes these commands were accompanied by a string of four-letter words, other times by a whack to girl's rear end.
Finally, the house was deemed in order, and Annabelle was told to hurry off to work before she was late.
"You don't want them docking your pay now, do you?"
When she left the house, the child was overcome with a sense of freedom. Even the dirt and grime of the tenement and the foul odor of horse manure and sewage were preferable to the atmosphere inside the Van Der Linde home.
Although tired from lack of sleep the previous evening and her physical labors that morning, Annabelle headed north on Mulberry Street. She walked quickly, navigating through the crowds and passing slow-moving individuals.
I do wish these people would move a little faster! I'm in a hurry!
* * *
The morning began quite differently for Letty. She awoke to the sun shining through the window. After stretching her arms, she reached for the velvet rope beside the bed and rang for her breakfast. By the time she returned from the bathroom—no chamber pots in this house!—one of the maids was delivering her eggs, toast, sausage, juice and milk.
While Letty was enjoying her food, the governess entered the room and selected an outfit for her to wear.
"I'm glad to see you're eating so well," Kitty said. "Miss Bissette and I have been worried about you."
"No need to. I'm feeling a little better today."
"Well enough to resume your lessons?"
"I think it would be best if I rested a little more and put off the schoolwork until tomorrow."
"As you wish, miss."
That was easy enough, Letty thought when the governess left the room, shutting the door behind her.
After finishing her breakfast and getting dressed, the little girl played with Annabelle's doll house. When she grew tired of moving the delicate China dolls from one miniature room to another, she looked for something else to do.
I think I'll paint a picture of the garden.
Pretending to be a real artist, she took a pad of paper and a box of watercolors and sat beside the window. Letty began by painting the fountain in the center and then worked her way outward. She painted throughout the morning and into the afternoon, only stopping for lunch. It was nearly three o'clock when she finished the background trees and shrubs.
Now comes the fun part: the brightly colored flowers!
She rinsed her brush in a cup of water and then dipped it in the red paint. As she was dabbing the bright colors on the paper, a movement in the garden caught her eye.
Is it a squirrel?
She squinted her eyes and saw a small human foot reaching down from the tree to the top of the wall. A moment later, she saw Annabelle's face, framed by her blond curls, peering through the leaves.
What's she doing here?
Letty put down the paintbrush and ran outside, careful to avoid the servants as she made her way down the stairs and out the back door.
Annabelle had just got her legs onto the top of the wall when she saw Letty hurrying toward her.
"I'm glad to see you. Can you help me down?"
"Why have you come back? I thought we agreed to switch places for three days."
"That was before I realized how awful a place it is out there. No offense, but your mother is a horrid woman! I don't know how you can stand living with her!"
"I know. It will be hard for me to go back there, now that I've had a taste of your life," Letty admitted.
"Well, you can stay with me tonight," Annabelle bargained, "but tomorrow you'll have to go back home."
"I don't see why. You've got plenty of room, food and clothes for both of us."
"Don't be silly! Someone is bound to find out. Besides, this is my house. You don't belong here."
"Are you so sure of that? Miss O'Dwyer and Miss Bissette believed I was you. I'll bet I could even fool your father."
"Maybe this was all a mistake," Annabelle said. "I think it best you leave now rather than tomorrow. After all, you don't want to become too comfortable here."
Annabelle, unused to climbing trees and scaling high walls, was unsteady on her feet as she let go of the overhead branch. Letty saw her teetering on her feet, trying to gain her balance, and reached out her hand for support as the other girl stood precariously on the top of the wall.
The wall! It was all that separated the world of privilege from that of poverty, from the life of a princess from one of a pauper.
Suddenly, the hand that was offered in assistance became one of reckoning. With all the strength her little form could muster, Letty Van Der Linde shoved Annabelle Woodville off the wall, and the unsuspecting girl fell to the alley pavement below, breaking her neck in the process.
* * *
Miss Bissette closed the bedroom door and whispered to the governess, "She's as white as a sheet, and the maid told me she didn't want anything to eat for dinner."
"But Annabelle told me she was feeling better this morning," Kitty O'Dwyer replied. "She ate a good breakfast and lunch."
"If she's not better tomorrow, I think we ought to tell her father," the tutor declared.
"And be sacked?"
"What if she is seriously ill and we don't tell anyone? We might both wind up in jail as well as losing our jobs."
"Maybe all she needs is a good night's sleep," the governess said hopefully.
After the two women ascended the staircase that led to the third floor servants' wing, Letty got out of bed and made a second, silent journey to the back yard. After removing her nightgown—she did not want to arouse anyone's suspicions by getting it dirty—she climbed over the wall. Under the cover of night, the twelve-year-old girl managed to drag Annabelle Woodville's body across the street and into the park.
* * *
When the little girl's corpse was discovered the following day, the police checked reports of missing children. After Mrs. Van Der Linde arrived from Mulberry Street and made a positive identification, Annabelle Woodville's remains were buried in a pauper's grave.
Meanwhile, Letty eased the servants' worries by eating a hearty breakfast and agreeing to resume her studies that day.
I can't put it off forever, the child reasoned, even though she had absolutely no desire to learn to read and write.
"You rest this morning, and I'll come back after lunch. Then I'll review the alphabet with you," Miss Bissette announced, remembering the girl's recent difficulties with her schoolwork.
The afternoon would be a good time. It would give Letty opportunity in the morning to complete her watercolor of the garden.
An hour later, she again sat at the window with her pad of paper balanced on her knee. She picked up the brush and dipped it first into the cup of water and then into the yellow paint. When Letty looked down at the garden for inspiration, she saw a small hand reach out from the leaves of the large tree beside the wall. The appendage was soon followed by a head of blond curls.
No, It can't be her! She's dead!
This time, Annabelle Woodville had no difficulty getting down from the tree and into the courtyard. Her vengeful spirit simply glided on the air like a graceful bird.
* * *
Promptly at two o'clock, Miss Bissette knocked on Annabelle's bedroom door.
"Who is it?" the little girl called.
"It is I, Miss Bissette, come for your lessons."
"Entrez, Mademoiselle."
When the tutor entered the room, she was surprised to see her student sitting by the window reading Victor Hugo's Les Misérables in French.
"You are feeling better then?" Miss Bissette asked with profound relief.
"Oui, Mademoiselle. Je me sens bien."
"Excellent! I'm glad to see you're yourself again."
"So am I, Mademoiselle," the ghost of Annabelle Woodville, having appropriated Letty Van Der Linde's body, said with a secret smile. "So am I."
Salem once wanted to trade places with the Astors' pet cat, until he learned he had to take a bath once a week.
