The House of Velvet and Glass (34 page)

Scarlet fever. The disease that had taken his wife in Rome. He never mentioned it, never mentioned Lydia at all. The comparison hung there, in the room.

“Now, Professor Derby,” Friend started to mollify.

“And you! Doesn’t this bother you at all? How would a woman like her even go about obtaining opium, I ask you? What sort of people must she be coming in contact with? You haven’t seen what addiction can do to a person. But I have.”

He got to his feet and strode over to Friend’s bookshelf, leaning on it and resting his forehead on the back of his hand.

“They become hollow shells of people, Sibyl,” he said without looking at her. “They lose their very humanity. I can’t believe you’d dabble in such things. I won’t tolerate it. Certainly not in the name of pseudoscience. You’re far too . . . you’re . . .” Benton trailed off, helpless in his rage. His shoulders moved under his suit jacket, as if they could roll off his anger.

“You see.” She smiled, turning to Professor Friend. “He’s terribly upset.”

“So I see, so I see,” Friend remarked, brushing his fingers over his mustache in thought. “I must say, Miss Allston, he makes a point. I share his worry about the people you might encounter with such an experiment. But”—he turned his cool gaze on Benton—“I differ from Professor Derby in one important respect. I don’t think your experiences aren’t legitimate. Perhaps the answer lies in a change of venue, rather than method.”

“Preposterous,” Benton said, still by the bookshelf, hands clenched at his sides.

“Now, see here, Benton,” Friend said, weary of Benton’s outburst. “There’s nothing wrong with opiates per se. So they’ve instituted a licensing scheme. Better to keep unscrupulous doctors from creating addicts just to bolster business. But Miss Allston isn’t putting her health in danger, necessarily.”

“It’s true, Ben,” she said. “Why, Papa takes laudanum almost every day, for his rheumatism. It’s in the tonic we give him, which his doctor prescribed. He’s taken it for years. It’s all perfectly natural.”

Benton prowled the narrow office like a caged panther, muttering. Sibyl glanced at the philosopher, who sat back in his desk chair, fingers still grooming his mustache, watching.

Finally, Benton stopped.

“All right,” he said. “I can see there’s only one way to convince you both that this is folly.”

“What do you mean?” Sibyl asked, twisting in her seat to look up at him.

“We’ll call on this Dee woman,” Benton announced. “Then you’ll see.”

“Call on her!” Sibyl exclaimed, aghast.

“That’s an excellent idea,” Friend said, getting to his feet. “But we must go immediately. I leave for New York tomorrow.”

“Immediately?” Sibyl repeated, eyes widening with panic.

“Immediately,” Benton affirmed, and stepped forward with a hand to pull her to her feet.

Chapter Eighteen

An interminable span of time had passed since Benton rang the bell, and Sibyl drew herself behind his bulk, as if she could swallow herself up and disappear. They hadn’t even phoned. Sibyl was appalled at herself for leading them to Mrs. Dee. The three of them, Sibyl, Benton, and Edwin, had piled into a taxicab in the trolley-heavy heart of Harvard Square, and Benton turned to her, saying only, “Go ahead. Give him the address.”

And she did.

Sibyl knew that the medium would be angry with her, but in a secret corner of her heart Sibyl was excited. She thrilled at the idea of revealing Mrs. Dee’s talents to the skeptical psychologist, thrilled at the prospect of Professor Friend’s legitimizing their work, and was also anxious to unveil her own recent discoveries to the woman who had guided her.

Sibyl always felt as though she were a disappointment to Mrs. Dee. Not that Mrs. Dee ever said so, but Sibyl feared that she wasn’t sufficiently committed to the work of their séance circle, and that her detachment indicated a failing of character. She worried that she was not a true enough person, a good enough daughter and sister, to be worth reaching. As though her soul were deficient.

Sibyl was so tired of disappointing people.

But the past few weeks had transformed Sibyl’s feelings about herself. First, that tantalizing moment when her mother’s manifested hand reached out for her, almost near enough to touch. Then, the deepening images revealed in the scrying glass. She could feel the contours of her world changing. For a long time Sibyl had felt imprisoned within herself, locked in a room she couldn’t get out of. But now, for the first time since she was a girl, she felt alive to possibility. Loosed.

Almost . . . free.

“Well?” Benton said, turning to Sibyl. He wasn’t going to let her hide behind him.

Sibyl squared her shoulders and said, “I suppose you could ring again.”

“You’re certain she’s home, Miss Allston?” Professor Friend asked, peering up at the forbidding face of the town house.

“I’ve never known her not to be,” Sibyl said. All three of them turned pale faces to the door, and Benton reached a hand up to grasp the knocker. It was brass, the shape of a spiny pineapple.

As Benton’s hand hesitated, the door squeaked open to reveal the watchful stare of the butler. Disapproval glimmered across the man’s face.

“Welcome,” he intoned, a flicker of recognition in his eyes as he surveyed Sibyl’s upturned face. “If you will follow me into the drawing room, please.”

Sibyl muttered, “Thank you,” in the butler’s direction and allowed herself to be shown through the door, the two professors following close on her heels.

Sibyl watched Benton out of the corner of her eye as he surveyed the room with a curled lip of skepticism. Professor Friend wore a bemused smile as he circumnavigated the room, bending for a closer look first at a book, then at one of the sparkling, opened geodes on the fireplace mantel.

Benton brushed a fingertip along the carved back of the medium’s Gothic armchair, lost in thought. Then he sauntered from the table to the cabinet at the far corner of the room. He stood, hands folded behind his back, gazing at it for a while. Sibyl thought she caught him steal a glance at her before turning his attention back to the cabinet, but she couldn’t be certain.

“Ah!” Mrs. Dee announced from her position in the doorway, the butler looming behind her. “My dear! What a pleasant surprise. And you’ve brought some gentlemen with you, I see.”

The small woman’s eyes roved over first Benton, and then Professor Friend, with a gleam of interest overlying a deeper suspicion. She was in her ermine-lined tapestry dressing gown; in fact, she looked so similar to the way she appeared when Sibyl last called on her that the effect was disconcerting.

“Good evening, Mrs. Dee,” Sibyl said. Her voice pierced the thick atmosphere of the room, sounding loud to her ears. She paused, unsure how to account for their sudden appearance in Beacon Hill, or how it would be received. “You know I would never wish to interrupt you—” she began.

The medium made a mild snorting noise of disapproval as she moved into the room.

“You know I always so enjoy your visits, Miss Allston. Though I prefer to be given a bit more warning if I will be entertaining guests.” She settled her eyes on Professor Friend first, moving toward him with her small hand outstretched.

“I confess the responsibility lies with me, madam,” Professor Friend said, his voice injected with a warmth that even Sibyl found reassuring. “You see, we were most anxious to speak with you, and as I’ll be traveling abroad on an extended trip tomorrow, it necessitated our sudden appearance on your doorstep.”

“If I may,” Sibyl interjected, “this is Professor Edwin Friend, of the Harvard philosophy department.”

“Ah! But not
only
the Harvard philosophy department, surely,” Mrs. Dee said with a knowing smile.

“Indeed not, madam,” Friend said, executing a courtly bow. “I have long been involved as well with . . .”

“. . . the American Society for Psychical Research,” Mrs. Dee finished for him. “Of course. Professor Friend. How good of you to come. To my home.” She accepted the young professor’s hand while also casting her eyes toward Sibyl, so that she would feel that the imposition wrought on the medium had not gone unnoticed.

“And . . . and this is Benton Derby. Professor of psychology,” Sibyl added, gesturing in a helpless way toward Benton, who still loitered by the cabinet in the far corner of the room.

“Derby! Why, that’s an old seafaring name, isn’t it?” The medium smiled. “You are a voyager, then. I can see it in your very bearing.”

Benton cleared his throat with mixed aggravation and discomfort, and managed to say, “You’re very good to welcome us on such little notice. Miss Allston spoke so highly of you, my colleague and I were most anxious to start right away.”

“Well!” Mrs. Dee exclaimed, moving to her customary chair, eyes downcast in false modesty. “Miss Allston is very kind. I only hope that I can be of help to you. Do join me.”

While speaking she had settled at the head of the table, her hands folded in her tapestried lap. Sibyl dragged her hassock over, placing it in her usual spot, while Professor Friend seated himself in a side chair. Benton lingered for another moment, rubbing a thumb with close attention over a hinge in the cabinet, and then, nodding with satisfaction, strode to join them. He sat, leaning his chin in a cupped hand, leveling his pale gaze on the medium with a smile that struck Sibyl as almost smug.

“I must say, Mrs. Dee,” Professor Friend began, “it’s amazing to me that you’ve been able to escape the Society’s notice.”

She smiled, dimpling at the perceived compliment. “Well, I’m afraid I have a very exclusive circle, Professor Friend. The people who come into my home insist on my absolute discretion. And in return I expect the same from them. We’ve had no wish to draw attention to ourselves.”

The medium settled a pointed look on Sibyl, who lowered her gaze to the surface of the table. The hassock was low, and the effect of this position was childlike, making Sibyl feel smaller than she was. She felt chastened by the medium’s rebuke.

“Of course,” Professor Friend agreed, nodding. “These matters always require tact and understanding. You must be of particularly keen sensitivity.”

Mrs. Dee watched the professor with the faintest air of suspicion but softened as he spoke. Even gifted mediums, it seemed, were susceptible to flattery.

“Yes.” She sniffed. “Well.”

A moment of quiet settled on the table as Professor Friend beamed on the woman in the Gothic throne, and Mrs. Dee enjoyed his attention. Benton cleared his throat, edging Sibyl’s foot under the table with a nudge of his toe. She gurgled at the suggesting pressure, and then brought herself to speak.

“I was telling them, before we arrived, how invaluable your friendship and guidance have been to me and my family since the sinking,” Sibyl said. “The scrying glass, in particular, has— Well. You must know. I was—at first, that is . . .” In her enthusiasm Sibyl stumbled over her words.

The medium bestowed a proprietary smile on Sibyl and nodded. “You’ve been practicing.” She made this announcement not as a guess, but as a statement of fact.

Sibyl shrugged and smiled her assent.

“And as you have practiced, you have had greater success,” the medium said, also as though making a statement of fact that was already known to her.

Sibyl looked up, her dark eyes searching the medium’s face for understanding. “Oh, Mrs. Dee,” she breathed. “You can’t believe what I’ve seen.”

“And these worthy gentlemen,” Mrs. Dee said, with a slow sweep of her hand to encompass the two men on either side of her table. “They expressed doubts, did they not?”

Benton let out a humorless laugh, chin propped on his hand, as Professor Friend hastened to say, “Oh, no indeed! We merely wished for more details.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Dee said, arching an eyebrow.

“Confirmation,” the professor clarified. “You see, the Association prides itself on using scientific principles to research the paranormal. We wished to consult with you on Miss Allston’s experience. I think you will find us”—he glanced at Benton—“to be a very credulous audience.”

“Ah,” the small woman said, bringing her fingertips together in a tented shape before her mouth. “Why stop with consultation?”

Sibyl’s eyes widened, and her eyelids started to flutter.

“Why indeed?” Benton said, watching Sibyl. “I was rather hoping we’d have a demonstration.”

“Benton,” Sibyl said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Well, why not?” he said. “What better place than here? She’s the one who gave you the glass, isn’t she? And taught you how to use it? In this very room?” He turned to Edwin Friend for support. “You can’t object to having another talented medium to evaluate, Edwin. Why, this could be vital for your research. We’d be doing science a great disservice otherwise.”

Sibyl’s brows lowered, unable to tell if Benton was mocking her. She didn’t appreciate his treating the situation so lightly. What did he know of loss? But as soon as the thought occurred to her, Sibyl flushed with shame.

Of course. Benton knew enough about loss. She glanced at his face, and when she did she found there a limpid look of desire and pain so palpable that she had to catch her breath.