The House of Velvet and Glass (22 page)

“
Titled
people,” Eulah said with a mischievous smirk. “Why, I don’t think she’s liable to rest until I’m married off to no less than a duke.”

“She’d settle for an earl, I’m sure.”

“An earl! Long as he’s got a proper country house for Mother to oversee on my behalf. I always thought she fancied herself too good for Gloucester.” The two Allston girls laughed, leaning their heads together in the conspiracy of sisters united in shared opinion of their parent’s folly.

“Anyway, you’ll go. You’ll enjoy yourself, you’ll see. Even if Mother’s along, hounding you the whole way.”

“What will you do?” Eulah asked, some of the merriment falling away from her eyes. Sibyl knew that Eulah felt guilty for supplanting Sibyl in their mother’s attentions. “It’s just too sad to bear, leaving you here alone, with old Doherty watching you like a hawk, and the Captain as conversational as ever.”

“I suppose I’ll also have Harley passing through every three days complaining that the laundries in Cambridge can’t starch his shirts properly,” Sibyl mused, laying a gentle hand on her sister’s knee. Sibyl understood her guilt. Even appreciated it. But it wouldn’t make any difference. “But really, you mustn’t worry about me. They’ve put me on the committee for the historical society lecture series. There’s a poetry group starting up at the Athenaeum. And if it gets too hot in town, we’ll take the train up to the shore house for a while. It’s humble, by your European standards, I realize, but it’ll have to do. I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied.”

Eulah smiled on her, a smile born of relief. She had wanted Sibyl’s permission, Sibyl realized. She wanted to be excited about the coming trip, to not have to conceal her excitement from her sister. Unapologetic unfairness was a part of the Allston family, as it was in all the other families of their acquaintance, and both of them knew it. “Maybe my earl will have a brother?” Eulah suggested.

“A dissolute one, I hope.” Sibyl smiled.

“Hideously ugly, with bad teeth!” Eulah laughed, clapping her hands.

“Provided he has a large fortune, and travels very frequently on business,” Sibyl insisted.

“And a country house close to mine. Then Mother can run both the estates for us while we lie around reading novels in the English sunshine.”

“Ah, that’s a lovely plan. A lovely plan indeed.” Sibyl sighed, smiling on the lively girl across from her. She wouldn’t put it past Eulah to snag an earl. Though for his sake, she hoped he favored female suffrage.

“Sure, that’s a great plan. Though, you know, I’d always thought that Benton Derby was . . .” Eulah trailed off with an uncertain smile.

“What!” Sibyl gasped, shocked to the quick.

“You think I didn’t know? Oh, I know plenty,” her sister teased.

When Sibyl didn’t respond, instead sitting back in the cushions, her hands clutching the dress fabric at her knees, Eulah added, “Maybe more than you, even.” Her smile melted away and in a quiet voice Eulah added, “Whatever could have happened, Sibs? I just can’t see why he’d wind up with Lydia and not you.”

They both leaned on the silken window seats, a warm puddle of spring sunlight between them, arms wrapped around their middles in an identical posture. Sibyl sighed, and then looked at Eulah from under lowered brows. “Maybe it was me? Maybe I told him that until he was titled aristocracy with his own yacht, I’d never even consider it.”

The two Allston girls stared at each other for a long minute, and then burst at the same time into gales of laughter, at everything the future might hold for them.

“Miss Allston?” the voice interrupted, shaking Sibyl out of her daydream. She was still standing in the drawing room, but her déjà vu released its hold, and she shook her head, bringing herself into the present. It was strange to walk into the drawing room and find another young woman stretched in repose in the puddle of sunshine that belonged, rightfully, to her sister.

“Yes, I’m so sorry,” she said, aware that she had probably stood gawking at Miss Whistler for an uncomfortable span of time. “I’m afraid I’m not quite myself today. We returned so late, and . . .” She trailed off, unsure how to fill her patter with this stranger.

With a tentative step, Sibyl approached where Dovie was sitting. Well, lounging; one slippered foot was tucked under the girl’s haunch while her compact body loafed in the cushions. Sibyl felt a twinge of envy; she never had the nerve to drape herself over the window seat with that much abandon anymore.

“You don’t mind that I opened the curtains, do you? It’s just so nice out, you know, and I wanted to watch everyone going along Beacon Street. There’s this little old man out there who’s been working his way up the block for, oh, it must be an hour or more. Never saw someone so slow in all my life. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been trampled.” The girl’s voice was sharp and bright, merry, accustomed to filling rooms.

“It’s quite all right,” Sibyl said. “In fact, I don’t know why we don’t draw the curtains back more often. It’s much cheerier in here now.”

Dovie Whistler leaned up on one arm and looked at Sibyl with a welcoming smile. Her figure, now that Sibyl could make the girl out through the halo of light around her, was, she had to agree with her father, much improved by the simple shirtwaist and dun-colored skirt that Mrs. Doherty had pilfered from Sibyl’s closet. Scrubbed free of paint and kohl, her face glowed younger and rosier than Sibyl expected, eyes wide and rich emerald, and her hair was brushed close to her head in tidy waves, curling just under her chin.

In the light of day, Dovie looked barely out of her teens; twenty, at the most. Sibyl felt a swell of sisterly responsibility, the same sense of entitlement mingled with obligation that marked all her interactions with Eulah. She moved to the window seat, wondering if complimenting Dovie on her improved appearance would be considered forward, or too intimate.

“Sure is a nice house you’ve got,” the girl said brightly. “Harley always made it sound like some kind of tomb or something, but I think it’s much nicer than a lot of the houses I’ve seen.”

The girl’s voice was softer too this morning. Her accent was difficult to place, flat and matter-of-fact, untinted by the lingering Anglophilia of Sibyl’s Boston circle. Sibyl smiled, bemused at the girl’s backhanded compliment.

“Why, thank you. My father designed it,” she said. “The house. For my mother, when they were going to be married.”

“Oh!” Dovie’s eyes widened, with new, though possibly feigned, appreciation for the aesthetic achievements of their home.

“And my mother chose the furnishings. Well, nearly all the furnishings. She was very particular.”

A knowing smile dawned across the girl’s face. “Particular. An Allston. Imagine that.”

Sibyl laughed. Deep in the inner parlor, Baiji the macaw let out a plaintive squawk, sufficient to inform the inhabitants of the drawing room that he was finding their conversation tedious.

“Did your mother choose this, too?” Dovie asked. “I’ve been playing with it. When I’m nervous, I pick things up. It’s a bad habit, I know. But I find I just can’t help myself.” She held up the polished blue crystal orb, balancing it on her fingertips.

Sibyl’s eyebrows rose in surprise and momentary annoyance. The ball had been hidden away in its enameled box and secreted in the sideboard. For Dovie to find it, she would have had to open drawers, peer under lids, rummage. Attempting to be magnanimous, Sibyl reminded herself that Dovie had been awake for some time, unoccupied and alone. Lonely, probably, and anxious in a new place, with people she didn’t know. Sibyl extended her hand, palm open, and Dovie slipped the ball from her fingertips. It was cool and round and perfect, polished, smoky blue, like a chunk of arctic ice.

“Ah,” Sibyl said, cupping the ball in her palms. “No, not hers. That’s mine.”

Dovie swallowed, growing worried. So she knew how impolite she had been to find it. Perhaps she had been seeing what she could get away with. “Oh! I didn’t realize.”

“It’s no bother. It’s meant to be held, actually.” Sibyl forced a fresh smile and offered the trinket back to Dovie, who accepted it, folding it in her tiny hands with unconcealed pleasure.

“Really?” she asked, bringing the item to her face for a closer look. “What is it?”

Sibyl leaned back in the yellow silk of the window seat, crossing her arms and smiling. She waved a foot. “I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you.”

“Oooooh!” Dovie exclaimed, rearranging her feet and leaning forward, elbows on her knees, in an attitude of confidentiality. “Try me.”

Sibyl laughed, resting her head against the leaded window. Outside a fresh breeze stirred the new ivy leaves, causing sunlight and green shadow to dance across the blue velvet rug, bringing unaccustomed gaiety to the drawing room. A corner of sunbeam brushed against the portrait of Helen over the fireplace and danced away. Under the leaves the sparrows tittered.

“Well,” she began. “It’s a bit difficult to explain.”

Dovie grinned, rolling the crystal ball in her hands with glee. “I love it! You
must
tell me,” she pressed.

Sibyl cast a watchful eye on the eager young woman perched across from her, as slight and airy as a bird herself. Would she understand? It was difficult to tell. Sibyl had heard that Spiritualist interests abounded in the artistic circles in Boston, much as they did among society. Perhaps more so. And this girl, in her travels, must have seen some marvelous things. Marvelous, or horrible, in turn. Looking into Dovie’s smooth face, green eyes shining with curiosity, Sibyl felt that her interest was genuine. However, Sibyl also guessed that beneath the sheen of interest was a heavy curtain behind which no one was ever allowed to see.

“Oh, I will. Only there’s so much I want to know about
you
first,” Sibyl said.

A shadow flitted across Dovie’s face, and she straightened in her seat. “Me?” she echoed.

“Why, certainly,” Sibyl said, attempting to sound reassuring. “Your accent, for example. I don’t think I’ve heard one quite like it before. Where do you come from?”

Dovie stiffened, her eyes shifting, as though she wanted to move away but couldn’t without drawing inappropriate attention.

“Why, California,” she said. “San Francisco.”

Sibyl saw that Dovie was trying to keep her real emotions hidden. A pretty credible job she was doing, too—if Sibyl had a less sharp eye, Dovie would have come across as careless, or disinterested in discussing her origins. But the carelessness was a ruse.

“Ah,” Sibyl said, wistful. “I’ve often dreamed of California, you know. But I’ve never been. Is it true that the air there smells like lemons? I read that somewhere.”

A train, billowing smoke with a mournful whistle, wended its imaginary way across Sibyl’s mind, chugging through tunnels blasted in mountains, past plains dotted with buffalo, and noble red Indians on horseback. Did they still have buffalo out west, and noble red Indians on horseback? She didn’t know. Had they ever? To think Dovie had seen all that. It seemed incredible, that such a small, young person could have traveled such a great distance.

Dovie only smiled, still tightly. She let the lemon comment pass unremarked.

“And how long have you been in Boston?” Sibyl continued, undaunted.

“Oh, you know. A little while now. I can hardly remember, to tell you the truth. Seems like I’ve always been here.” Dovie kept her smile vague. Her eyes were on the scrying glass, rather than on Sibyl’s face. She rolled it between her palms, then brought it to her lap.

“Ah,” Sibyl said. “So I suppose you consider Boston your real home, then?”

“Yes, yes indeed,” Dovie agreed, relieved to leave the question of California behind.

“And yet you live in a boardinghouse, don’t you?” Sibyl pressed, keeping her voice gentle.

“Sure.” The girl’s eyes darkened to a deeper emerald. “It’s quite affordable, you know. Respectable, too. I haven’t got any family anymore, and Mrs. Lee, she’s the one who runs the house, she keeps an eye on me. We’re a very congenial bunch, in the boardinghouse.”

“I see,” Sibyl said. She wondered what this creature did for money. She had her assumptions, naturally. But it was impossible for her to ask. Wasn’t it?

Sibyl paused, and the girl smiled at her, perhaps thinking the question of lodging had been addressed.

“I suppose you support yourself, then?” Sibyl ventured.

The girl pressed her lips together but kept her expression bright and open. “Well, sure! I have my own money. I’ve been on my own for ages.”

“Ah,” Sibyl said, nodding. “So.”

“And now that I’ve told you all about myself, you must tell me what this funny ball’s supposed to do,” Dovie said, teasing, but also firmly enough that Sibyl perceived that further details of Dovie’s upbringing would not be forthcoming. At least, not today.

“Well,” Sibyl began slowly. “There are many ways to answer that, I suppose. It’s a little hard to know where to begin.” She paused. “Perhaps Harley told you that we had another sister as well? Who died?”

Dovie’s face closed, arranging itself into the proper representation of pity and understanding. “Yes, he mentioned.” She hesitated, unsure what words would be best to choose, and so choosing—as so often was the case with people faced with another person’s tragedy—to say nothing.

“She was a remarkable person, Eulah,” Sibyl said, eyes softening. “So opinionated! Very involved in the franchise. So pretty and gay. She loved music, and dancing. I never knew a girl so happy to be alive, so open to what the world had to offer. Mother was very attached to her—of course, we all were.”

She took a breath, and then let it out slowly, releasing the miserable tightness that she always felt in her chest when she thought about Eulah and Helen. If she strained her ears, she could imagine she heard the sound of Eulah’s laughter, tinkling upstairs.

Dovie watched her with a tentative smile.

“Well, Mother decided that Eulah, after she came out in society, should be taken on the grand tour. Meet all the fashionable people in Europe, go to the picture galleries and cafés.”

Sibyl’s dark brows lowered at the memory. She could never escape how bitterly the news of this decision sat with her when it was first delivered, in Helen’s trademark singsong voice, over a late-night supper four years earlier.