The House of Velvet and Glass (33 page)

The professor waited, resting his chin on his palm. The surprise on his face occasioned by Sibyl’s comment softened into an indulgent smile. “And . . . ?” he said.

“And so she’s staying at the house now. Temporarily.” Sibyl, still avoiding Benton’s gaze, leaned forward, blowing a delicate stream of air over the soup in her spoon.

“Temporarily,” Benton repeated.

Sibyl sat back with a sigh and looked him in the face. “Oh, you needn’t conceal what you really think. Of course I was against it at first.”

“Of course,” Benton agreed.

“But Harley’s quite attached to her, and given what happened in that awful boardinghouse, well . . .” Sibyl trailed off. She added “It’s no place for anyone, that boardinghouse. It’s dreadful. After all the work I’ve done with settlement houses, how am I going to object when the girl needs our help? Besides, Harley is the real problem here, not her.”

“I don’t suppose the Captain thinks Harley’s really going to marry this girl?” Benton asked, voice low. “I can’t see him allowing that. Or you, for that matter.”

A curious expression crossed Sibyl’s face as Benton voiced this idea. “If there’s been any discussion of marriage,” Sibyl said, stumbling over the last word, “I haven’t been party to it.”

“I see,” Benton said. He returned to the plate in front of him, sawing off another morsel of pork and forking it into his mouth.

“But in any event,” Sibyl continued, stirring her cooling soup, “Miss Whistler’s a much nicer girl than I would’ve anticipated. Even if she has had an unconventional upbringing.”

“Unconventional,” Benton said, spearing another few green beans and depositing them, again without asking, on the edge of Sibyl’s plate. “That’s one word for it.”

“Ben!” Sibyl said, irritated. “I’m surprised at you. She’s had a tougher time of things, all right. But Miss Whistler’s a lively girl, and she’s devoted to my brother. Of course I don’t know what Papa’s plans are, but she’s been perfectly fine to have in the house. In fact, I’ve grown quite fond of her.”

Benton sighed, massaging an eyebrow with his fingertips.

“What is it?” Sibyl pressed, folding her arms over her chest. “I wish you’d just say what’s on your mind, and not make me guess at it all the time.”
I so often guess wrong
, she thought without saying.

“Frankly,” Benton said, looking at her, “I can’t believe this. What, are you going to bring her along to Junior League meetings now? Lectures at the Bostonian Society?”

“Why not?” Sibyl challenged him. Perhaps she hoped to shock Benton with her worldliness.

“I don’t think you understand. It’s not just a matter of Harlan’s having a romantic, ill-fated love affair, like something out of one of your women’s pulp novels.”

“I don’t read pulp novels!” Sibyl objected, but he cut her off.

“She was in his rooms, Sibyl. She was found there. In a—” he cleared his throat—“a compromising way. An
immediately
compromising way.”

A long pause settled on the table between them while Sibyl digested this piece of information. Her dark brows furrowed over her eyes. Benton waited, watching. She kept her face composed. Then she took up her spoon.

“Nonsense,” she said. And followed this pronouncement with a prim sip of broth through her pursed lips.

“I’m afraid it’s true,” Benton said.

“You’re mistaken,” Sibyl said. “She’s an actress. She has some unconventional ideas, I’ll give you that. An artistic temperament. That’s all. It’s quite refreshing, actually. I don’t know why I haven’t made more of a point of going to the artistic salons, as Harley has.”

Benton peered at Sibyl, and she saw behind his gray eyes the turning wheels of calculation. “What makes you say so?” he asked.

“Why, I’ve gotten to know her quite well these past few weeks,” Sibyl said with authority. “I have,” she reaffirmed before he had the chance to argue with her. “We’ve been going around together. She’s lovely. And not at all the way that you imply. I think we’ve all misjudged her.”

Sibyl looked at Benton under her lidded eyes, enjoying the shock on his face.

“Well, how do you like that,” he said. “Going ’round with her. Going ’round where, pray tell? I don’t suppose you’ve gone to catch the Griffith picture, then, or take in a show?”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve had her to lunch at the Oceanus. And that’s not all,” Sibyl said with a slow smile. She looked left and right over her shoulder, with an air of happy conspiracy, and leaned forward, beckoning for Benton to do the same. She moved her mouth only a hairsbreadth away from the curve of his ear and whispered, “There’s something else I’ve rather wanted to discuss with you.”

The cab had nearly arrived in Harvard Square, and Benton was still so angry that he hunched away from her on the seat, glaring out the window. But Sibyl was sure. She knew what she had observed over the past several weeks. She had never been more certain of anything in her life.

“It’s remarkable, I tell you,” she reiterated, but he only responded with an aggravated snort.

The cab bounced over a pothole, and the two rocked against each other, his shoulder pressing momentarily against her own. He felt solid, reassuring, but in his solidity Sibyl sensed a new remoteness.

The cab rounded a corner, and Sibyl glanced at the driver to see if their argument was being observed. From the faint twitch in the driver’s ears, she saw that it was. She dropped her voice to a barely audible whisper.

“I’d think you of all people would be most interested in what I have to say,” she said. He, too, shifted his gaze to the back of the driver’s neck, then ducked his head to argue in a harsh whisper of his own.

“Miss Allston,” he said, and she noticed that her Christian name had fallen away over the course of their drive to Cambridge. “What you describe is simply impossible. Now I have every certainty that you
believe
that you’ve experienced something real. But your believing it doesn’t make it so. Frankly, it concerns me.”

“Concerns you!” she exclaimed.

“If it happens the way you’ve described it to me, how could I help but be concerned?” His voice rose, agitated, and the driver’s head inched back to hear what was being said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sibyl said. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“I don’t see how you, an otherwise reasonable woman, would claim such things are safe. There’s a reason the law was changed, you know.”

She started to protest, but by then the cab had stopped on Massachusetts Avenue and Benton was already out of the cab, tossing some coins at the driver and not bothering to see if Sibyl was following him or not. She scrambled after him as he strode through the brick arch leading to campus with the forward-leaning gait of a man on a mission.

“Ben!” she called, feet skittering beneath her, her skirts gathered with one hand and the other placed squarely on top of her hat. He didn’t look around. “Ben!” she cried again, breaking into a jog.

He slowed, only enough for her to start to catch up, then continued without looking at her. The Yard elms whispered together, their leaves waxy green from the rain, and Sibyl sidestepped a puddle.

“Perfectly safe,” he muttered under his breath, apparently indifferent to her struggles to keep up. “I’ll show you perfectly safe. It’s lunacy. You’re making a terrible mistake, and I’m going to prove it.”

He marched to the philosophy building, up the concrete steps, through an echoing marble entrance, down a long hallway, and through a heavy oaken door with the word
FRIEND
in black letters. Benton flung the door open.

“Edwin!” he cried. “If you don’t see the harm of your damn fool experiments when you hear what she’s been up to, then by God, you’ve lost your senses completely.”

Professor Edwin Friend glanced up from a stack of undergraduate term papers, over which he was bent with a blue fountain pen, and smiled.

“Why, Miss Allston!” Friend said, breaking into a smile, eyes crinkling with pleasure. He stood, tossing the pen down. “Do come in! And you might as well bring Professor Derby with you. We can put up with him for a little while, can’t we?”

Sibyl laughed but brought her gloved fingertips to her lips with a hasty glance at Benton. Their merriment only seemed to make him angrier. His ears were deep scarlet, and his nostrils flared. Sibyl placed her hands on Benton’s shoulders, and felt them drop in response to her touch. She moved around him, edging into the office and beckoning him to follow with her eyes.

“Tell him,” Benton said, his voice tight with rage as he took a seat across from the philosopher’s desk. “Go on. Tell him what you’ve been doing.”

“Professor Derby is terribly uncomfortable with madness as a general rule,” Professor Friend remarked. “But in any event, I’d love to hear about whatever you’ve been up to. I did hope you’d stop by my class, you know.”

“We were dining downtown,” she said, “and I told Professor Derby about a recent experience of mine. But I’m afraid he doesn’t approve.”

“Approve!” Benton burst, smacking his hand on the armrest of his chair. “My God, spit it out already!”

Professor Friend looked mildly on his colleague, and then leaned toward Sibyl with confidential interest. “I’m fascinated. Anything that could get Professor Derby so riled up must be worth doing.”

“Well,” she began, “you recall that I had been involved with a . . .” She cleared her throat, glancing at Benton. His pupils formed pinpoints of rage. “A Spiritualist gathering.”

“Yes, of course,” Professor Friend said, nodding his encouragement. “As so many of us are.”

“Yes,” she faltered. “Well. The medium presented me with a present. A sort of crystal ball.”

The philosopher’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, really? Not one of those glass balls that gypsies use?”

“Oh, no,” Sibyl protested. “This one is small, just a toy, really. I didn’t think much of it at first.”

Benton drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “That’s it, just work your way up to it slowly, no rush at all,” he said. Sibyl scowled at him.

“How big is it?” Friend asked.

“Small. It can fit in a palm. But I usually keep it in the box. Mrs. Dee told me that—” Sibyl stopped, clapping her hand over her mouth when she realized what she had done. The name didn’t seem to mean anything to the professors, however.

“She told me that it was a tool,” Sibyl continued. “For seeing.”

“Clairvoyance,” Friend exclaimed. Benton made a pshawing sound and rolled his eyes. “Now, Professor Derby,” the philosopher said, his voice friendly, “surely you know what clairvoyance is?”

“I suppose there’s no stopping your telling me,” Benton said, rolling his head against the backrest of the chair in exasperation.

“Clairvoyance,” Friend said, “is the ability of gifted individuals in a mesmeric state to see beyond the normal realm of perception. Often by using tools like tea leaves, cards, or a glass.”

“Just so!” Sibyl exclaimed. “At first I didn’t think I could do it. But lately I’ve been seeing the most remarkable things, Professor Friend.”

“Like what?” he asked, eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Well,” Sibyl said, relieved at having an appreciative audience, “as you know, I’d been trying to contact my mother and sister for some time. I’d grown terribly frustrated, and I was skeptical of ever being able to accomplish anything like that on my own. After all, I have no special gifts.”

“That’s not true at all,” Benton growled.

She glanced at him, surprised, but made no comment. Then she turned back to Professor Friend. “At first, I just saw water. Or at least, I thought it was water.”

The philosophy professor leaned forward on his desk as Benton squeezed the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb.

“Lately,” Sibyl whispered. “I’ve been seeing the ship. I can see it down to every detail. The hull, the dining room, the clock in the stairwell . . .” She trailed off, eyes shining. “I’ve been amazed. I think . . . I think I’ll be able to see them. If I only practice a bit more.”

“Remarkable,” the philosopher breathed. “Seen
Titanic
, have you? As though you were there yourself ? Simply remarkable.”

“Remarkable!” Benton grumbled. “Tell him how you attain the mesmeric state necessary for these remarkable visions of yours, Miss Allston.” When he said the phrase
mesmeric state
, Benton waved his fingers on either side of his head, as though they were quotation marks.

“Well, Professor Derby, it’s usual for clairvoyants to experience visions in a trance state,” Professor Friend said. “I can think of a number of your colleagues who’ve done research into hypnotism and altered consciousness. I understand it has tremendous therapeutic potential.”

“Tell him,” Benton said to Sibyl, ignoring him.

Sibyl ducked her head, looking sheepish. “I assure you, Benton, there’s no harm in it.”

“Tell him,” Benton hissed, “or I’ll tell him myself.”

“He’s very concerned,” she said to Friend. “Though frankly I can’t imagine why.”

“Because it’s against the law, for one thing,” Benton burst, “and because of the unpardonable risk to your health for another!”

“Whatever is he talking about?” Professor Friend wondered, looking at Sibyl.

“In truth,” she confessed, “the first few times I tried to use the glass nothing happened.”

“Why, that’s not unusual,” the professor said. “Like any mental exercise, clairvoyance requires patience. And practice. And a certain amount of innate capacity. Occasionally, the skill is found in families. Some people try for years before achieving even modest success. Most never succeed at all.”

“You see, Benton? It’s not so terrible as all that,” Sibyl said, wishing to elide the question of how she might have discovered this innate capacity of hers.

Unable to restrain himself, Benton leaned forward into Professor Friend’s face. “She’s been smoking opium, Edwin. She!” He pointed at Sibyl, who sat, prim and ladylike, shoulders drawn back as though prepared for a ballet recital. “That’s how she’s been accessing your so-called mesmeric state. And you’re encouraging her! I can’t believe it. The unmitigated gall!”

He turned to Sibyl. “I suppose you know that everything you think you’ve seen with this so-called scrying glass has been a fever dream, don’t you? That’s all opiates do—create vivid dreams. Same kind of thing you’d get with scarlet fever. There’s no reason to give it any credence whatsoever.”