The House of Velvet and Glass (23 page)

“
Her?
” Sibyl spat, throwing her napkin down in annoyance. “Her, by herself ? I suppose Harley and I don’t have a yen to see Europe, then?”

“Mother, Sibsie at least should come with us,” Eulah suggested, though at the time Sibyl had thought Eulah was saying so out of filial loyalty rather than any real desire for Sibyl’s company. Her sister’s love of being the center of attention could sometimes offset her basic goodness.

“Really, darling,” Helen said, with a firmness that the Allston children didn’t often hear from her. “I’m sure your brother can find a time to go later on. When he’s done with school.”

“My brother!” Sibyl exclaimed, her anger coloring her cheeks a rich scarlet. Eulah’s eyes vacillated between the two of them, nervous, unwilling to say something that might jeopardize her own opportunity to go. “And what about me?”

Helen smiled on her eldest daughter with a patient, immovable smile. “Well, there’s the matter of cost, I’m afraid. The tickets I have my eye on are terribly expensive. And someone has to stay here and keep an eye on Papa,” her mother said, as though explaining a terribly obvious point. “You don’t think I can count on Harlan to do that, do you? What do you think will become of Papa if he’s left here all by himself ?”

“But,” Sibyl protested, sputtering, feeling like a young child being cheated at a game. She grappled for the right argument to make, perhaps that her father had lived on his own at sea for half his life and so could surely make do in Boston, or that Sibyl herself was still young, still beautiful enough to be worth marrying.

“You’re so reliable, Sibyl,” her mother said, closing the discussion. “I simply can’t see any other way. And you wouldn’t wish to deny your sister such a grand opportunity, would you?”

What followed was a dreadful row of which Sibyl was still ashamed. She hardly ever raised her voice; usually it was Harley or Eulah who was the maker of scenes in the Allston universe. Perhaps even worse than her initial anger was the fact that Sibyl would never be able to forgive herself for thinking, in the first black instant when they heard that
Titanic
was lost, that she was relieved not to have been with them.

Dovie placed a gentle hand on Sibyl’s knee, inviting her to continue. The gesture shook Sibyl out of her sadness and guilt, bringing her back to the sunlit bay window.

“Yes,” Sibyl said. “Well. They were on their way home. They’d been away for months, you know, and I knew from the postcards and telegrams that they’d had a wonderful time. Especially Eulah. They were embarking at Southampton, and we were all set to meet them in New York when they arrived. And the boat they were taking was so grand and fine, there was an awful lot of excitement. Its maiden voyage. We were going to meet them to celebrate when they landed at New York.”

She paused, searching Dovie’s face for understanding, possibly even for forgiveness. Sibyl yearned to be released from the crushing, noxious weight of her mingled guilt and relief. Of course Dovie couldn’t know that. Even if she could know what Sibyl wanted, forgiveness wasn’t in her power to bestow. Sibyl knew this, but she searched for it anyway in the young woman’s face. Dovie nodded, slowly.

“Well,” Sibyl finished, with a stoic smile. “I suppose you know what happened. They never arrived.”

Dovie’s hands reached forward to clasp themselves together on Sibyl’s knee.

“As you can imagine,” Sibyl said, voice catching, “it was a terrible shock. For all of us. It was in all the papers. We couldn’t get away from it. Harlan took it very hard. He’ll never admit it, but he did.”

Dovie smiled a private smile, her eyes softening at the mention of Harlan’s name, and Sibyl wondered what he had told Dovie about those first few days after the sinking. As she’d passed his rooms Sibyl had heard the muffled sound of him weeping like a little boy, and whenever he emerged for meals his eyes were puffy and red. Their father was impatient about it. She once overheard the Captain upbraiding Harley in the inner parlor, hissing that he must pull himself together for Sibyl’s sake. Even then, Sibyl suspected that the real reason Harlan must contain himself was for their father’s benefit, rather than her own.

Looking at the young woman across from her, Sibyl wondered what other parts of Harlan’s secret self he had been able to share with this young woman that he had had to keep hidden from his family. Still Dovie said nothing, only watching, with those magnetic green eyes.

“Well. You’re probably wondering what that has to do with—” She gestured to the crystal orb in Dovie’s lap, loath for some reason to give it its proper name. “When she was alive, Mother had been—that is—she had rather enjoyed the fashion for . . .” Sibyl hesitated. “Oh, it sounds so silly when you say it aloud. Table-tipping. You know. Those sorts of things.”

“Did she really!” Dovie exclaimed. Sibyl watched her, trying to weigh how open the girl might be to what she was about to say.

“Yes,” she affirmed. “I was never all that interested when I was younger, to be honest. Not at first. I mean, she used to take me with her. When I was a girl. I was always afraid that the spirits would hurt me. I was terribly scared during the séances most of the time. Of course nothing bad ever happened. It was always just music, and strange images, and sometimes”—she paused, embarrassed—“manifestations. Mother placed great stock in it. She’d consult a medium on anything. I eventually stopped attending, when I got older. Eulah and Harlan never went at all.”

“Why, I’m amazed you’d stop going, once you saw it wasn’t as scary as all that,” Dovie remarked. “I should think it’d be amazing, to communicate with spirits. Imagine! I always thought that was just a lot of stage magic, you know. Like climbing into a box and pretending to be sawed in half.”

“Yes.” Sibyl faltered. “Well. I suppose I can see why you’d think that. But. At any rate. Losing them, the way that we did.” She took a breath, and then smiled gamely. “It’s just that it was so sudden, you know. We weren’t prepared for it at all. So when, on a day shortly after the sinking— That is, a woman, a most remarkable woman, who ran the evenings Mother always used to attend, she gathered a group of us together. For the purposes of—”

“A séance,” Dovie finished for her, smiling. “You started going to séances, that’s it, isn’t it?”

Sibyl glanced at her, seeing delight in Dovie’s face, as though her proximity to Sibyl might edge her nearer to the beyond herself.

Sibyl continued her abbreviated thought as though Dovie had not spoken. “Of contacting those lately lost. I was in the group that first week, yes. And I’ve seen her each year since. It was that woman who gave me the crystal ball.”

“So this is for conjuring, is that it?” Dovie asked, holding the ball up before her eyes with a newfound gleam of interest. “Well, it doesn’t look like much, does it? But I suppose you should know.”

“I don’t know about conjuring,” Sibyl demurred. “It’s for seeing. Of a sort.”

“How does it work?” Dovie demanded with enthusiasm, laughing like a girl about to play a practical joke. “You’ve got to show me. Shall I draw the curtains?”

Sibyl brought a hand up to her face, cupping her chin, tired. The bacon weighed heavily in her belly, and she was unaccustomed to dealing with someone of such high energy as Dovie. How was the girl able to put on so many different faces while still managing to appear sincere?

“In truth,” she said, “I’m not really sure. The medium showed me how, once. But it only worked for her, and not me. So I put it away.”

“Away!” Dovie cried in dismay. “But that’s a shame, to have such a remarkable thing, and not use it.” She toyed with the crystal, playing it about her fingertips. Sibyl watched her play with it, feeling a curious sour jealousy that Mrs. Dee had been able to make it work, while she had not.

The two sat in silence, Dovie still rolling the orb in her hands, absorbed. She was very like Eulah in many ways. The same quick, credulous energy. The same enthusiasm. Dovie seemed, like Eulah, the sort of person who would answer yes to things as a matter of course, rather than no. Small and bright, compact, faster moving than Sibyl, who was more languid. Sitting in the bay window, sunshine falling between them, talking with Dovie, it felt familiar. Homelike.

Sibyl sat up with a thrill of sudden resolve. “Let’s get your coat,” she said.

“My coat?” Dovie asked. “What for? I’m actually not sure where it is. That gloomy-looking housekeeper took it away last night.”

“We’ll have her find it, then. We’re going out. For tea. Come along.” Sibyl got to her feet, holding a hand out, without thinking, for Dovie to take. Smiling, surprised, Dovie slipped the ball into her skirt pocket, accepted Sibyl’s hand, and got to her feet.

Interlude

North Atlantic Ocean
Outward Bound
April 14, 1912

Laughing, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, Eulah stumbled over the doorjamb from the gallery out to the deck, narrowly avoiding tripping over a neglected steamer chair in her haste to reach the railing.

“Wait up!” Harry called after her, closing the door behind him.

She leaned her elbows on the railing, pressing her face to the frigid night air and inhaling deeply. The night was moist and heavy with fog, and a damp chill spread through Eulah’s bones as soon as she left the warm safety of the dining gallery. The breeze from the ocean stirred her skirts around her ankles, moving the heavy silk against her body and flapping it out to the side. She brought a hand up to secure her hat against the breeze. Her breath escaped her mouth and nose in a cloud of warmth, and she grinned, imagining that it was her soul that she could see, moving in and out of her body, instead of her breath. She was on the point of sharing this observation when she felt Harry’s arm slide around her shoulders, and his voice whispered low in her ear. “It’s freezing out here. Now what was it you wanted to show me?”

The warmth of his body in the cold night caused her to shiver. Eulah brought a hand up alongside his cheek, and her eyes danced up at him. “Me?” she asked. She dropped her voice to a whisper and said, “This.”

She tipped her head back, offering her lips to him, and he pressed his mouth to hers. He tasted like warmth and whiskey, the perfect male flavor, and Eulah found herself smiling around the kiss, helpless against the laughter that came bubbling up from her chest. She laughed into his mouth, and he laughed, too, pulling back to place a kiss first on her cheek, and then on the tip of her nose.

“You’re very forward this evening, Mr. Widener,” Eulah chided, nestling into the crook of his arm. He was right, it really was freezing outside. Her arms were all gooseflesh, and soon her teeth would start chattering.

He laughed, looking out over the water. “
I
am?” he asked, rubbing a hand over her upper arm to warm her up. “Well, I suppose I am, then.”

They paused, both gazing out through the depths of fog, a low haze hiding the surface of the water and deadening its sounds. They heard the tinkling and laughing of voices inside the dining room, the scrape of chairs as dancers reclaimed their seats. Somewhere on a lower deck, they could discern the faint sound of voices and fiddle playing. The entire ship throbbed with life. Within its teeming soul, they felt the engines vibrating beneath their feet, and the churn and roll of water as it was muscled aside by the cutting bow of the steamer.

“We’d better not stay too long,” Harry remarked. “Your mother will miss us.”

“I can think of few things my mother would like better,” Eulah said, “than to think she might have reason to miss us.”

“She making plans for you, I take it?” he teased.

Eulah sighed, glancing at him under the netting of her hat. It tickled against her nose, and she brushed it away with a finger. “Always,” she said. “Mother always has plans.”

“Just for you?” he asked. “Or for everyone?”

“Well,” Eulah said, thinking of her siblings. “Just everyone south of Gloucester. But it seems like her hopes really rest on me.”

“How’s that?”

“Oh, you know. My brother’s all decided. He’ll finish out school, and then Papa’ll take him in hand. Put him to work. He’ll marry somebody eventually. He’ll get the house. That’ll be that, I guess. And my sister—”

Eulah hesitated, wondering if it was disloyal of her to speak so freely. But she didn’t care. She knew she shouldn’t speak her mind as much as she did, but was usually powerless to stop herself.

“I think she’s missed the boat, in a way. It’s a shame. She’s awfully clever. Much cleverer than I am.” She paused, thinking about Sibyl. “I was always a little jealous of her, to be honest. People listen, when she says things. But she’s been out for a while now, and nothing’s ever come of it. She’ll keep on with her committees, I imagine, and she’ll take care of Papa. So yes, I suppose you could say Mother’s settled the better part of her ambition on me. She’ll just about die if I’m not engaged within the year. I don’t know how she’s standing the heartbreak, me not coming home a duchess already.”

“I know how you feel,” Harry said, frowning.

Eulah searched up into the young man’s face. “You do?” she asked softly.