The House of Velvet and Glass (42 page)

“One thousand two hundred fifty-three,” Benton said. “At least, that’s the number I heard. I don’t know how many crew.” A strange look crossed his face, as though he had something important to add. “Sibyl, there’s—” he started to say with some urgency, but she cut him off without meaning to.

“Great God in heaven,” Sibyl whispered.

“Well, Ben,” Harlan interjected, drawing himself up to his full height and thrusting his chin forward with manful determination. “Looks like we’ll be going to war after all.”

“What do you mean?” Dovie asked, looking up at him from where she was kneeling by the coffee table, her hand on the newspaper.

“Well, sure,” Harlan said, with a new determination in his voice. He folded his arms across his chest, and the gesture made him look broader. Older. “Think about it. I don’t see how we’ll stand for this. Why, there were Americans on that boat. A hundred of them at least. It was en route from New York! We can’t take that kind of thing lying down. I’d say it’s only a matter of time before we throw our hat in the ring. Should’ve done it a long time ago, if you ask me. Some of the fellows were down at the club talking, and we decided we’re all going to head to this camp they’ve got in New York, at Plattsburgh. It’s for civilians who want to start training. That way when it’s made official, we’ll be ready.”

“Harlan!” Sibyl exclaimed, aghast.

“Now wait one second,” Benton said, moving into the room and stopping behind Sibyl’s chair. He looked down at her, face haggard and drained. “Let’s just keep our shirts on.”

“Shirts on!” Harlan burst. “How can you say that, in the light of all this? Broad daylight, you said it yourself ! They don’t even know if anyone made it off alive. Why, the loss of life could be enormous. Are you going to stand here and tell me we should accept that kind of barbarity? Why, it’s an open act of war. It goes against every sense of common decency and humanity.”

Benton cleared his throat, lines around his eyes contracting with tension that Sibyl couldn’t entirely read. “Nobody’s saying otherwise, Harley. But remember all that fuss on campus last year, over the Mexican question. We’ve got to consider every angle. The torpedoing could be a mistake. I heard the boat had been repainted, making it look less like a passenger ship. Who knows if her name was even visible, or what flag she was flying. The Germans might try to make reparations. There’s no telling what will happen. I understand the president hasn’t even issued a statement yet.”

Harlan straightened where he stood, throwing a look of venomous spite at Benton. “I could care less about Wilson and his goddam statements,” the boy exclaimed. “There’s right, and there’s wrong. The Germans have crossed the line, and I’m not going to stand for it. Some of us were talking about joining up with the Canadians, to get over there even sooner. Show Fritz what we’re made of.”

“Harley,” Sibyl said, slowly rising to her feet and placing a hand on her brother’s sleeve. “What about school? I thought you were going to—”

“School!” he spat, throwing her off. Dovie stood up also, her eyes darting between the two Allstons, weighing where her allegiance should lie. She edged nearer to Harlan, looking on Sibyl with pleading eyes, willing Sibyl to calm her brother down. “What could I possibly learn by going back to school? You expect me to go back to Westmorly, write up my term papers like a good little boy? What have term papers to do with anything that’s real? Nothing. Don’t you see?”

“Harlan,” Benton said. “She only meant that—”

“No!” Harlan bellowed, cutting him off. His eyes flashed with a certainty and clarity that Sibyl had never seen in him before. “I wouldn’t expect either of you to understand. Sibyl, you never even set foot outside this goddam house. You’re like a ghost. And you!” He spun on Benton. “Shuttered away in your office with your books and papers. Don’t you see? I’ve been given a chance. I can
do
something about this. After all this time, I’ve finally been given a way to make it right!”

At this last word Harlan pounded his fist against the wall, so hard that Sibyl felt the vibration through the soles of her feet, turned on his heel, and stormed out of the room. Dovie looked around, a helpless expression on her young face, before hurrying after him. Harlan’s feet could be heard stomping up the front stairs, and Dovie disappeared through the parlor door behind him, calling out, “Harley, wait. Wait!”

In the sudden calm following Harlan’s departure, Sibyl exhaled and sat with an “Oof ” back down in her armchair. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, resting her head on her hands. She was aware of Benton’s moving to take Dovie’s chair, sitting, placing his hands on his knees. As always her gaze was drawn to the little hairs on his knuckles. He held himself more stiffly than usual, and his hands gripped his knees as though reminding himself to stay restrained.

“Sibyl,” he began. “I have something very difficult to tell you. The
Lusitania
. . .”

She sat back and dropped her hands with a sigh. “What a tragedy,” she said, looking at him. “Though I’m a little surprised to see Harlan taking it so hard. Whatever can that be about?”

“Yes,” Benton said, uncertain. “About that. There’s something else. That Harlan doesn’t know.” He looked down, working his hands together.

“Why, what is it?” she asked.

“It’s—I can hardly think how to tell you,” he stammered. Benton stopped speaking, and Sibyl waited. The only sound in the house was the omnipresent ticking of the mantel clock.

Finally Sibyl couldn’t stand the wait anymore. “Benton, I wish you’d tell me what’s—” she started to say, but she began speaking at the very instant that he said, “Tell me again, what was in that vision you’ve been having?”

“I beg your pardon?” she asked, confused.

He leveled his steely gaze on her, and she saw that his eyes were watery and pink behind his spectacles. She frowned.

“That vision of yours,” he said, voice nearly breaking. “The one you’ve been having. The one you had when I persuaded you to go to Mrs. Dee’s. Could you tell it to me again?”

“Well,” she began, uncertain why he’d be asking. “It starts with me skimming along the surface of the ocean.” Benton nodded, urging her to continue. “And then it shows me the ocean liner. And then I move up over the side and travel among the people inside. And I go looking for my mother and sister. But it—happens. The boat begins to founder. Before I find them. People running and screaming. And then, sometimes, right at the end, I see Professor Friend in the crowd.”

Benton hung his head, looking down at his hands. “Right. Yes. And what time of day did you say it was?” he asked.

“Time of day?” she repeated. “Why—well, that’s the odd part. When I first started, it was during the night. Late, but not so late that people weren’t still up. But the last few times, it’s been during the middle of the day. I couldn’t really figure out why that should be, but that’s how it’s seemed to go. I was beginning to think you might be right.”

“Has it,” Benton said, still quiet. “And did you never find your sister and your mother? Not even once?”

“No,” Sibyl said, her voice dropping to a whisper, her dark brows drawing together over her eyes. She leaned forward until she could just feel his soft breath on her face. “Why, Ben? Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Sibyl,” he said, meeting her eyes with his. “What time of day did
Titanic
sink?”

She sat and thought for a moment. “Why,” she said, “I’m not sure. But I believe the papers said they struck the iceberg a little before midnight. And then it”—she paused over the word, swallowing—“sank. Within a couple of hours. Before dawn, at any rate. Why?”

He nodded, searching her face. “Just so. And, for the sake of argument, why do you think the time of day would have changed?” he asked. “In your vision. If it was
Titanic
you were seeing, shouldn’t the vision have always been set in the middle of the night?”

A vague sense of ill ease spread through Sibyl, and her eyes widened. She sat back in her chair, feeling the same sickening dizziness that sometimes crept in on her when she hadn’t eaten enough. The dark, oily blackness started to swirl in on the edge of her consciousness, and she took hold of her armrests, willing herself to stay present. “Ben,” she said. “What are you saying?”

Benton leveled his gaze at Sibyl, boring into her as though if he stared into her eyes hard enough he would be able to see whatever strange images she was privy to.

“Sibyl,” he said. “I’m asking because of Edwin. You see, Professor Friend was traveling to Europe this week for a conference.”

“He was?” Sibyl asked, her voice sounding hollow in her ears.

“Sibyl,” Benton said, struggling over the words. “Edwin was on
Lusitania.
”

Interlude

North Atlantic Ocean
Outward Bound
April 14, 1912

Helen twisted her napkin between her hands and stretched taller, trying to see over the throng of dancers at the end of the gallery. She’d lost sight of them. Her instincts told her to stand up and see if she could get a better view, but she battled the impulse away. She mustn’t meddle. Or she mustn’t
seem
to be meddling. Oh, but it was too stressful to be believed. Where had those two sneaked off to? She hoped Eulah wasn’t talking the Widener boy’s ear off. Course, she also hoped he wasn’t boring her daughter stiff with all that book-collecting business. Eulah wasn’t such a book person. Gracious, who was?

Tinkling laughter reached Helen’s ears, and she turned to find Eleanor Widener laughing behind her dinner napkin. Her eyes were resting on Helen, bemused and kinder than when they first sat down.

“Oh, Helen.” She sighed, dropping the napkin back to her lap. “It’s hard, being the mother, isn’t it?”

Helen sighed with relief when she saw that the laughter was friendly, and reached for the glass of Madeira that had appeared at her place while she watched her daughter dance. “It is,” she admitted. “It really is.”

“I don’t know about you,” Eleanor said, leaning closer. “But I never expected it to be so difficult. Did you?”

“Difficult?” Helen said. “Why, I don’t know that it’s been as difficult as all that.”

“Perhaps difficult isn’t what I mean exactly,” the other woman said, resting her chin on a papery white hand, heavy with jewels. She ruminated on the question for a time, and Helen reflected that Eleanor Widener had the most rosy and exquisite skin she’d ever seen on a woman her age. In the candlelight she looked twenty years younger than she probably was, and her eyes were shining from the wine. “George, what word am I looking for?” the lady asked her husband.

“Hmmmph?” he grunted. “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Men never pay attention, do they?” Eleanor smiled. She dropped her voice. “Of course, sometimes that’s for the best.” She waggled a ring finger suggestively when she said it.

“On the contrary,” Helen said with a sniff. “Lan is rather involved with the children. From a distance, you know. But he always has been.”

“Has he?” she said, surprised.

“Oh, yes. They’d tell you otherwise, I’m sure. But they just don’t know him as I do. He always had it in his head that we’d have three. Even had their names all picked out. And he pays close attention to everything that they do, knows all their little peccadilloes. How a man seems and how a man is can be so different sometimes, don’t you agree?”

“Hear that, George?” Eleanor said with an arch of her eyebrow. But Mr. Widener was busy winding his pocket watch and didn’t respond.

“He’d never admit it, but he’s quite fond of them. They’d probably be shocked to hear me say so. You know how children are. Scared of their fathers, sometimes. Intimidated. But I can tell. He dotes on them,” Helen said with a pleased smile.

“Well, of course he would. Eulah’s quite the butterfly, isn’t she? Just lovely,” Eleanor agreed, and Helen beamed.

“She’s a pistol. That’s what her father says. Personally, I think she takes after me.” Helen pressed a modest hand to her chest and fluttered her eyes as she made this pronouncement. “But you know,” she said, dropping her voice to confidential tones, “his real favorite is our eldest.”