The House of Velvet and Glass (37 page)

Benton reached a steady hand to take Sibyl’s elbow, and he made a soothing noise through his lips, an effort, perhaps unconscious on his part, to calm her rising temper.

“Consider, my dear,” Mrs. Dee said, hard and unapologetic, fingertips resting on the tabletop. “That we all have different ways of understanding what is authentic, and what isn’t.”

“That’s a fine person, to talk of authenticity,” Benton growled. He exerted gentle pressure on Sibyl’s elbow, to begin steering her to the door. She hung back, baffled as to what the little woman could be driving at.

“What do you mean?” Sibyl demanded.

“What were you looking for, when you came here?” she asked, watching Sibyl.

“I was . . .” Sibyl started to say, but trailed off.

What had she been looking for? Reassurance that her mother and sister were well. And perhaps she was looking for absolution. Sibyl’s grief and sorrow weighed on her with leaden pressure, deepened and soured by her all-encompassing guilt. Guilt for not being with them when the ship went down. Guilt for resenting their voyaging without her, and guilt for being secretly relieved that she yet lived. Perhaps she came seeking permission. Perhaps she came to the séance seeking permission to live.

Sibyl glanced back at the medium’s face and saw that she knew what Sibyl had been looking for, and did not judge her. Mrs. Dee’s face softened, a half-smile bending her puckered mouth.

“Were you looking for a
true
experience?” Mrs. Dee asked. “Or were you looking to have your grief soothed? Which is more important, do you think?”

She paused, to let her point sink in, not only for Sibyl but for the professors as well. Benton and Edwin Friend exchanged a pointed look.

Mrs. Dee continued, without agitation or defensiveness. “I offer succor to suffering people, that’s all. When you come down to it, what difference does it make, the methods that I use? What matters, in the end, is that the succor you found in this drawing room was real.”

The woman stepped from behind the trick séance table and moved toward Sibyl. She stiffened as Mrs. Dee approached, a carapace of anger and bitterness settling over her. Sibyl resented the physical proximity of someone who had abused her trust. Yet she wondered if the medium had a point. If she found what she was looking for, did it really matter if it was found under false pretenses? Sibyl frowned, uncertain, hating feeling tricked. Her gullibility was the most horrifying realization of all.

The tiny woman edged nearer, taking Sibyl’s hands in hers. Mrs. Dee’s hands felt fragile and small, warm, reassuring even, and Sibyl felt for the last time a twinge of the deep relief that she had grown accustomed to finding in Mrs. Dee’s company. In a sense this revelation of Mrs. Dee’s duplicity, this drawing back of the complex curtain of dissembling that Sibyl now knew had cloaked her awareness every time she entered the Beacon Hill house, felt like yet another loss. In the glaring light of truth revealing the technology of deceit, this realm of safety, of anonymity and reassurance, was closed to her. She would never be able to fool herself so thoroughly again.

The woman turned her round face up to Sibyl, her gaze boring deep into Sibyl’s eyes. “You must understand,” she said, almost in a whisper. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I do hear spirits, you know, I always have. I could see the smoke, but I could never see through it. They speak so quietly, sometimes. You mustn’t think, just because I’ve added a few bells and whistles to heighten the effect, that your experiences with me have no meaning.”

Sibyl swallowed, her brows drawn in a furrow over her nose, unsure what she was supposed to say in the face of this nonapology. The medium rose on tiptoe, reaching her lips for Sibyl’s ear. Obediently, Sibyl dipped her head to capture the last words that Mrs. Dee would ever say to her.

“I know that you can see, too,” the woman said, her whisper so faint that it seemed to occur inside Sibyl’s head. “Don’t let anyone else tell you what’s true, when you
know
.”

Sibyl drew her head back, looking down at the false medium in shock. Her mouth twisted as she wondered how to respond. Mrs. Dee held her gaze for an instant longer, nodded once, as if to say,
You know that what I say is true
, and then stepped back, releasing her hold on Sibyl’s hands.

Sibyl’s confused reverie was abruptly broken by the voice of Professor Friend, who announced, “Well, I think we’ve seen all that there is to see here, haven’t we? Come along, Miss Allston. It’s getting late. I’m sure you’re wanted at home, and I have an early start tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Benton said, still holding her elbow with a delicate grip. “Sibyl, let’s go.”

The two men moved to the drawing room door, Sibyl allowing herself to be led away, stumbling on feet made uncertain by the combined effects of cough syrup and her odd trance during the séance. Mrs. Dee watched her go, the butler looming behind her, sepulchral and silent.

“Madam,” Professor Friend said, “it’s been a most enlightening afternoon. I thank you for your hospitality.”

Mrs. Dee did not respond, only flaring her nostrils in annoyance. Benton glared at her, not bothering to conceal his malice as he wrapped a protective arm around Sibyl’s shoulders.

Sibyl climbed into her coat and hat, feeling strangely detached, as though the afternoon had happened to someone else. As the two men flagged down a taxicab and bundled her out the medium’s front door for the last time, Sibyl looked over her shoulder into the drawing room. The butler was sliding the inner door closed, and Sibyl caught sight of the little woman, whose first name, Sibyl realized, she did not even know, disappearing by slow degrees behind the rolling pocket door. Just before the medium vanished from view, she caught Sibyl’s eye, and mouthed
I know you see.

And then she was gone.

In the taxi bumping alongside the Common in the gathering darkness, Benton and Edwin chatted between themselves, digesting the turn of events. Sibyl gazed out the window, listless and perturbed.

“There you have it,” Benton was saying. “They’re all just cunning manipulators. It’s fascinating, in a perverse way. The psychology of her. I don’t deny she had tremendous personal magnetism, but you know, there are personality disorders that’d account for it. I grant you she probably
believed
she could communicate with spirits. But, Ed, that doesn’t mean Spiritualism is legitimate. You should know. After all, you’ve debunked more than anyone, I’d wager.”

Sibyl pressed her fingertips to the cab window, her breath fogging the glass. Outside, beds of tulips rolled past, their pale flower heads wet and glistening, receding into the shadows of the park.

The philosophy professor let out a hearty laugh and said, “I do believe Houdini has debunked more. Strange work, that a stage magician would align himself with academic science. But you must admit, Benton, that people’s very willingness to believe in her speaks to the profound, nearly universal desire to commune with the spirit realm. Isn’t that desire itself evidence that the spirit realm exists? The idea of the soul is an abiding belief, across cultures, across history. The callousness of a few manipulative people can’t make the entire enterprise unworthy of study.”

Sibyl let out an audible sigh, without meaning to, and both men paused, noticing. Benton let his hand drift to her knee and leaned his mouth close to her ear.

“There now,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Why?” she said, voice fragile and small.

“Why what?” he murmured.

Observing their confidential discussion, Professor Friend pretended to be absorbed in the staid house fronts of Beacon Street passing outside as the taxicab rolled its stately progress down the hill and into the Back Bay.

Sibyl swiveled her eyes to Benton’s face, dark and pleading. “Why would you want to do that, Benton? I feel so—”

The lines around his eyes contracted with concern. “Me? But, I just—” he started, then stopped. He took a breath, and then tried again.

“Because. I thought— You’re so very—” he started, then stopped again. Still she gazed at him, searching his pale gray eyes for comprehension of why he would want to pull away this bit of solace. He squirmed, dropping his eyes to his lap, threading the fingers of his hand together with hers.

“I want so badly for you to be happy,” he confessed, having some difficulty assembling the words. “Truly happy, I mean. I couldn’t stand the thought that some charlatan would—”

She waited, wondering what he was going to say next. She let her thumb explore, almost by accident, the skin of his knuckle, with its few tiny dark hairs. Something about those few dark hairs compelled Sibyl, though she was at a loss to explain what that might be.

Finally, he spoke again. “I thought this interest of yours might be standing in the way, that’s all.” He cleared his throat, forcing himself to say what he was thinking. “Of your moving on. It’s natural to mourn their loss. Of course it is. But you’re still alive, Sibyl. There’s so much of life waiting for you.” He brought his eyes up to her face again, and she felt his stare enter into her.

“But, Ben,” she whispered, dreading what she was about to say, or rather, dreading that the accepting look on his face would fall away when she said it.

“What is it?” he asked, tightening his grip.

“I . . .” she began, then paused, biting her lip. “I wish I could explain. But you must know. I
did
see something in the glass. In fact, each time I try it, I see more.”

He frowned, worried. “The power of suggestion is very strong, Sibyl. You mustn’t feel strange about that. Anyone would have thought they saw things, who had sufficient desire to do so.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. What I saw—”

“What was it?” he asked, his tone unexpectedly gentle, willing to listen.

“I saw the night sky over the Atlantic, and I saw the prow of the boat, which I’ve been seeing for a few weeks now. But this time, it was different. This time, I was finally able to see people.”

“People? What people?” he asked.

“They were all in a very fine dining room, the first-class dining room, and there was dancing. And then all at once everything shook, and everyone started to panic. There was running every which way, and then the boat started to list. Oh, Ben.” Her voice caught, horrified by the memory. “It was horrible.” She brought her hands to her face with a shudder.

Benton spoke slowly, drawing his words out. “Did you see them?”

Sibyl swayed with the motion of the taxicab, her face buried in her hands. Professor Friend cleared his throat, possibly to remind them that he was still within hearing distance. Sibyl dropped her hands halfway, peeking at Benton from above her fingertips.

“Not them,” she whispered, eyes reddening.

“Who?” he whispered. “Who did you see?”

Sibyl swallowed, then dropped her voice until it was little more than an exhaled breath.

“Him,” she whispered, pointing at Professor Friend as he gazed, lost in his own thoughts, out the taxicab window.

Interlude

Shanghai
Old City
June 8, 1868

Once, the summer before he shipped out on the
Morpheo
, at an afternoon musicale at the home of Eunice Proctor, two blocks down Chestnut Street from the Allston home in Salem, Lannie encountered a zoetrope.

“How’s it work?” he inquired of his young hostess. Of Eunice Proctor that particular afternoon all Lannie could remember were two dainty cross-stitched bloomer cuffs extending below a full plaid taffeta skirt, as his gaze hadn’t so far been able to stray farther north than the giant bow at her waist. He spent most of the musicale addressing himself to her shoes.

“It’s simple,” she said. “You take a strip of this paper, here.” She held out a long coil printed with successive images of a horse in midrun, each silhouette depicting the horse’s legs in a slightly different position. “And then you put it in the barrel, here.”

She leaned forward, adjusting the mechanism with purpose. It was in that moment that Lannie had made it as far as the bow.

“And then you look through the slats,” she urged. He leaned forward, bringing his nose near to the barrel. Out of the corner of his eye he grew aware that Eunice was also leaning forward. He might have just spotted a glossy corkscrew of hair, tantalizing in its nearness, but he daren’t look.

“And then you spin it!” she said. The barrel burst into motion, and Lannie caught his breath. Flashing through the barrel slats, the horse broke into a run before his eyes.

“Why, look at that! It’s moving!”

The girl tittered, enjoying showing off her sophisticated parlor entertainments. It spun and spun, the horse galloping in a circle to nowhere, gradually slowing along with the dwindling rotation of the barrel, devolving into flat flickers which, finally, resolved to stillness.

“Want to see another one?” she asked.

“You bet I do!”

Scene after scene was fitted into the barrel, and in each instance the illusion took Lannie’s breath away. A lion, leaping over a ball. An elephant walking with an acrobat on its back. A long-tailed blue parrot bursting into flight. He quickly forgot Eunice Proctor’s bloomer cuffs in his astonishment at discovering movement in images that had, moments before, been devoid of life.