The House of Velvet and Glass (5 page)

“Don’t bother with the hot water, if you like the river so much!” her mother’s admonishment followed her up the back stairs. Young ladies did not hunt for eels, she was reminded as the mud was scrubbed off her neck, leaving it reddened and raw. But later that night, her father confided that he saw her catch them out the window, and those were some fine eels indeed.

Sibyl sighed as the sun sank deeper in the sky, and then she turned to the waiting kitchen door.

“So you’re back, then,” barked a voice with a subtle burr as Sibyl closed the door, her eyes adjusting to the gloom of the rear hall. “Wipe your feet, or you’ll track in the wet.”

The white hallway paint was stained with yellowish dinge, layers of smoke from coal fires, tobacco, and leaking fireplaces, and though the gas fixtures were all lit at dusk, the walls absorbed the light rather than reflecting it. Sibyl shrugged off her overcoat and handed it to the dour matron who awaited it, mustering her best impression of a lady arriving at a house she commanded. Her performance fooled neither of them.

Clara Doherty, the housekeeper, was unchanging, a solid person in an old-fashioned peaked linen cap and long black dress. She might have been Sibyl’s age, had not the Allston family employed her since Sibyl was a child. Mrs. Doherty lingered on the periphery of family photographs for over two decades, holding a baby, or standing in the background of a holiday dinner, and through it all, as the people around her grew and changed, she stayed, arms straight at her sides, face unmoved. She was Irish, but she didn’t look it, or at least that’s what was always said of her. Her eyes were small, blue, and hard, her cheeks sunken. She wore her dark hair in a coil at the base of her neck, and though it must have been long enough to loop into place, Sibyl had trouble picturing what Clara Doherty might look like with her hair undone.

Sibyl had a fantasy of what warm and friendly Irish maids might be like, drawn from novels and the households of her girlhood friends. They were called “Peg” or “Mary,” and they dispensed cakes and merriment in equal measure. They loved saints and little children, and they had amusing folk sayings that scarcely made sense. Sibyl sometimes yearned for one of these imaginary Irish maids. She cast a wary eye at Mrs. Doherty as she handed over her hat. The woman accepted it with a sniff of motherly disapproval, dusting it off with a few thumps of her hand.

“Left your messages in the parlor,” Mrs. Doherty said. “Belgian relief committee, and it’s your turn to host the sewing circle, Mrs. Drew says. Do you want her to arrange for the flowers, et cetera, and she’s very keen that you call her back.”

Sibyl’s shoulders sagged. Of course Mrs. Drew wanted to arrange the flowers. She wanted to arrange everything. And why couldn’t she host the meeting herself ? Sibyl wondered, as was her habit when confronted with Mrs. Drew and the sewing circle.

“Thank you,” Sibyl said. The housekeeper shot her a reproving look that Sibyl was given to understand meant that other ladies of her standing usually employed a girl to see after the social schedule, rather than distracting the housekeeper with message-taking all day. It was an old argument. Sibyl knew that one day she would lose.

“Mister Allston is at home, I take it?” Sibyl asked, attempting to sound authoritative.

“So he is,” the housekeeper said over her shoulder. There was a pause, of instructions needing to be given. “You’ll be wanting to see young Mister Allston first, I wager.”

“I beg your pardon?” Sibyl said.

“Young Mister Allston’s t’home, these two hours ago.”

“Harlan? He’s home?” Sibyl glanced upward, as if the layers of wood and plaster separating her from her brother could melt into transparency and demonstrate the truth of this unexpected piece of news. Her mouth twisted in a nervous twinge. “But what can have happened? He’s not due ’til June.”

Mrs. Doherty’s face was impassive. She stood before Sibyl, holding the coat and hat over her arm. Behind her eyes flickered a measure of sympathy, held at a far remove.

“Not to worry. We’ve got the sheets well changed. But the girl’s been wanting to know what time she’s to have supper for ’em.” Mrs. Doherty always referred to the cook as “the girl,” for reasons Sibyl never could fathom.

“It’s not the sheets that have me concerned,” Sibyl said without thinking. She was always saying more than she should. The housekeeper was silent, and in her silence was agreement. Sibyl watched, but the woman’s narrow face gave away nothing—no illuminating details that might shed light on her brother’s appearance at their door, unannounced, untelephoned, uninvited, in the middle of the week.

“You’ll be stopping by the kitchen, then,” Mrs. Doherty said, in the neutral tone that was simultaneously an observation and a suggestion. Sibyl noted the comment, reassuming the surface of a woman unfazed.

“I’m sure Betty has it all well in hand,” she said with a determined step down the hallway, as if to suggest that she had known all along that Harlan was coming home, had planned for it, had taken it up with the kitchen staff, and that if she had neglected to inform the housekeeping staff, it was her privilege as lady of the house.

“Yes, ma’am.” The chill comment followed behind her in the darkness. Mrs. Doherty knew better.

Sibyl hurried to the kitchen, choosing the most easily solved of her fresh problems. She pushed open a heavy door and met the delicious aroma of roasting chicken. Through the savory haze of kitchen air, cloudy with flour and aglow from the gas fixture over the work table, Sibyl observed Betty Gallagher, striped cotton back turned, castigating one of the occasional girls as she crimped the edges of a soggy-looking pie.

Betty, to Sibyl’s occasional discomfort, was Sibyl’s exact age. She was plumper than Sibyl, healthy-looking, russet skinned with a smattering of freckles, as though her cheeks were spattered with cake batter. Her hair was dark red-brown, and frizzy, tied off her brow in a pouf. Sibyl thought her an ally in the house, and Betty provided one of the few sources of humor to be had within doors. If that humor was tinged with an unbecoming undercurrent of anger, Sibyl tried to overlook it.

“Betty!” she called from the doorway, and the hubbub of the kitchen ceased, with another of the occasional girls, a pale waif in a stained pinafore, actually freezing with her arms raised over a mixing bowl, as though caught in a game of tag.

“. . . by God, your ear’ll get boxed so hard you’ll be spitting blood!” Betty finished upbraiding the cowering girl at the coal stove. As soon as the rebuke left her mouth Betty noticed the abbreviated silence in the kitchen, and turned.

“Forgive my interrupting,” Sibyl ventured from the doorway.

“Out,” Betty commanded the unfortunate girl, indicating the garden door with a jerk of her head, and the girl ran off with a squeak. Betty wiped her floured hands on her apron and approached Sibyl, casting her eyes sidelong at the other underling.

“Don’t stand there gawking,” she snapped to the statue at the kitchen table, who unfroze and, with her head down, set batter mixing, eyes averted.

“Too much work, on the dough,” Betty remarked, her exasperation tinged with defensiveness. Sibyl gathered that Betty wished to be very clear where blame for the pie should go. “But don’t worry, we’ll get it fixed. You’ll want supper at seven thirty, then?”

“Mrs. Doherty tells me that Mister Harlan’s arrived,” Sibyl said, watching Betty for clues. News traveled quickly along the back stairs, and most of it found its way to the kitchen sooner rather than later.

“So he did,” Betty said, wiping her forehead with the back of a wrist and leaving a smudge of flour behind. She planted her hands on her hips and shook her head, and Sibyl thought she saw a soft look cross fleetingly over Betty’s face. “Couldn’t miss ’im.”

“I don’t suppose he indicated to you or Mrs. Doherty how long he plans to say,” Sibyl stated.

“I don’t s’pose he
did
,” Betty bristled. “But his trunk seemed to imply ’twas awhile he planned on. If he’s staying, I’ll be needing more for the grocer. I’ve got all the meals planned, but he throws the numbers off, don’t he.”

“What’ve you got on for tonight?” Sibyl asked.

“Roast chickens, sausage pie, cold cucumber salad, Madeira, and orange fluff for the pudding,” Betty listed. “Had to right stretch to make the pie.”

“That should do,” Sibyl reflected, avoiding looking at the greasy sausage pie in its deflated raw crust on the edge of the stove. “Mrs. Doherty didn’t mention anything at his arrival?”

“Nnnooo,” Betty said, drawing the word out. “But it weren’t quiet.”

“I gather not,” Sibyl said.

The two women looked at each other while the girl at the kitchen table stirred her batter with even more vigor.

“All right,” Sibyl decided. “Seven thirty, then. Have Mrs. Doherty ring the dressing bell, if you would. Not much more than half an hour, I don’t think.”

“Ma’am,” Betty said, with only a hint of irony, nodding her head. Then she turned to the open garden door and yelled, “You, idler! Back in here ’fore I drag you in myself !”

Sibyl withdrew, letting the kitchen door swing closed behind her, and hurried down the hallway, readying herself to face her father.

Interlude

East China Sea
Yangzi River Delta
June 8, 1868

Shallow waves slopped against the starboard side of the cutter, tossing up tongues of salt spray. Lannie thrust his hands into his armpits, squinting. Strange to be in such a low boat, within the water’s grasp. He could almost reach out and brush a hand over the ocean surface, stroke it like an animal. It looked like an animal, breathing, the surface glassy, or pebbled with wind. In his months at sea Lannie had grown accustomed to looking at the sky for coming weather, or the horizon for other sails, or for wind lines over the swells. He had stopped looking at the water’s surface. Now there it was, rolling up and under him, only an arm’s length away.

The other men in the cutter murmured, restless, fingers running through the money in their pockets. They’d endured a long journey, longer than planned, and the mood on board the Yankee clipper
Morpheo
had passed from excitement, to tedium, to festering discontent. The passage south was bitter; full on two weeks of foul winds thwarting them, as if forgotten ocean gods, enraged by their presence, stirred up a vile brew of wind and ice to blow the little clipper all the way back to Salem, forbidding them the other side of the world.

Around him the chattering of the others swelled, tension growing in their shifting bodies. Lannie shook himself, alert to the change. He couldn’t tell what imperceptible signal meant that the land was approaching. He strained his eyes through the gathering dusk, senses creeping forward. Only blackening mist, and the pull and slop of oars moving them across the surface of the water.

Then, he felt something—a change. The air pulled away from the cool breath of the ocean animal beneath him. Against his face Lannie felt a wave of pressure as the cutter entered the fetid air pouring off the land. He reached up to loosen the buttons on his coat.

In the distance, a line of glittering lights, haloed in mist. The warm mass of air carried shreds of sound: a shout, clattering cart wheels, the faint wail of music. As they neared the shoreline, oars dropping into the water and rising, Lannie’s nostrils quivered with the subtle land flavors: familiar wharf smells first, of salt water, rotting fish, seaweed. Then, stranger things: cooking food, something burning, rich animal smells, the cloying scent of flowers. He squinted, peering ahead.

The dots of light resolved into rows of paper lanterns, suspended in the windows of buildings made of bamboo and daubed mud. These modest dwellings hung over the water on stilts; behind them rose hulking forms that slowly revealed themselves to be new stone office buildings; and Lannie understood that he was looking not at some crowded village, but at a bustling modern city. Before his shock could register, it was there.

Shanghai.

The cutter bumped its way alongside the dock, making a hollow sound as it nudged against the wharf, and a flurry of activity broke out as men sprang ashore to secure the lines. The other sailors in the cutter jostled together, assembling on the dock amid whoops and hollers. The sailors’ voices mingled with the cries of the street vendors and wharf noise, and Lannie quailed at stepping out of the boat, into a world of which he knew nothing.

“Let’s not forget Greenie,” a gruff voice admonished, and hands dug into his flesh, hoisting him up, his feet scrambling for purchase on the gunwale, onto the safety of dry land.

Greenie, for greenhorn, was a name he tried to bear with good humor. A sandy boy, with a fine long nose and eyes the color of water, Lannie at seventeen felt confident in his chosen profession. Cocky, almost. He didn’t mind the close quarters. He loved the gentle creak of the ship, loved its motion, and the music of snoring sailors abandoned to sleep. At sea he delivered himself into Providence’s hands more freely than he ever had back in the brick house on Chestnut Street. At home, Providence always seemed to stalk behind him in the hallways, following him to bed, waiting to pass judgment on his innermost thoughts. On the water, Providence was master; Lannie was answerable only for his actions, and not for the state of his soul.