The House of Velvet and Glass (50 page)

Her father sighed, massaging his forehead with his fingertips. Deep in the shadows the macaw let out a sleepy caw. “I suspect,” he said, “that most people would hold your opinion. But this is still new to you, I gather. It’s not new to me. It’s weighed on me for almost as long as I can remember.”

“But why should it?” Sibyl asked, not understanding, hurrying over to kneel at her father’s knee, looking up into his face.

“I suspect that most people, hearing our family has the wherewithal, under specific, and dangerous, circumstances, to see what God has in store for us, would be envious. But that envy would be misguided, Sibyl. You see this as a great gift now. That’s only because you haven’t lived with it long enough. Do you think I liked knowing that the sea would give me my livelihood, while taking away what I love? Even before I met Helen, I knew how she would die. Do you think I liked knowing, even before you all were born, that I would outlive all my children, save one? That my efforts to change the plan, my struggles to be free, would only make the outcomes worse? It’s actually—” He paused, resting his hands gently on his daughter’s shoulders.

“What?” she whispered, looking with terrified eyes, obsidian in the firelight, into his weathered face.

“It’s a curse.” He said the word softly, so softly that Sibyl at first didn’t register its gravity.

“A curse?” she repeated, a deadly chill spreading through her limbs.

He nodded. “Yes. It doesn’t look that way at first. But it is. In truth I feel myself,” he spoke gently, “to be damned. I have sinned. I know this. And I must bear my punishment as best I can. I only ask that God not visit the same punishment on my children. Not on you, my dear. Not on you.”

Sibyl dropped her head, wiping at the corner of her eyes with her fingers. She felt her father’s hand descend on her head, patting her hair with a soft, reassuring stroke.

“There, there,” he murmured. “Don’t cry, my dear. Please don’t cry.”

She didn’t respond, bringing her forehead to her hands, still knotted together on his knee. She choked back her sobs, keeping silent, and he stroked her hair. They sat like that for a long while.

At length Sibyl swallowed her tears and said, “But, Papa. What shall I—what shall I say to him?”

“You shall say nothing,” Lan Allston said. “You shall let him make his own choices, guided by God’s hand. Even God cannot make us other than we are, but he can, in his love, show us the best possible path. That is the kindest, the truest thing you can do for your brother. You must let him feel himself to be free.”

She searched his face, horrified by what he was asking her to do. “But how can I face him?” she said, aghast. “How can you ask me to say nothing, to let him go away? What can I say to Dovie? To Benton?”

The old sailor smiled wanly down on his distraught daughter. “You have the strength. And in asking these questions you begin to see how dangerous, how horrible, this skill is. You must give it up, before it’s too late. I’m begging you. Give it up. We’ll find a way to help you. But you must give it up.”

He clasped his hands around hers, pressing them between his rough sailor’s palms. Sibyl felt their tremor, which she now understood was a sign not of tired hands beaten by a life at sea, but of his addiction, his enslavement, to the hideous seduction of scrying.

Sibyl looked down, and then she pulled her hands away and struggled to her feet. She drew herself up to her full height and looked down at her aged father, who gazed up at her with sorrowful eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Sibyl hurried back to the outer drawing room, her arms wrapped around herself, and when Benton and Dovie saw her horrified face they both leaped to their feet.

“Darling,” Benton exclaimed, stepping to meet her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and peered down into her face. “Why, what is it?” he asked when he read her distress. “What can have happened?”

Sibyl forced a smile, tossing the loose strand of hair off her forehead with a quick motion of her head, which made her look fleetingly like Harlan. “It’s nothing,” she said, placing a soft hand alongside Benton’s cheek. His skin was rough and sandpapery to the touch, a hallmark of the lateness of the hour. She allowed herself to rub her thumb along the corner of his mouth.

“It’s not nothing,” he insisted, gray eyes darkening with concern.

“No, really,” she said firmly. “It’s just the lateness of the hour. I’m so tired I can barely see straight. Surely you must be tired as well.”

“I suppose,” Benton demurred. Hesitant, Dovie, her face streaked with tears and rivulets of kohl, approached from the bay window and hovered at the outer rim of their conversation.

“I confess, I’m awfully tired, Sibyl,” the younger woman said, resting a hand on Sibyl’s arm.

“Well,” Sibyl said, placing her own hand over Dovie’s and then smiling at them both. “That settles it. Benton, perhaps you should head home. I’ll see Miss Whistler upstairs, and we’ll regroup to take on the Kaiser tomorrow. All right?”

Benton looked doubtful but pulled out his pocket watch and let out a low whistle when he observed the time. He replaced the timepiece in his waistcoat pocket, and threaded his arm through Sibyl’s free elbow. “Reasonable to the last,” he said. “All right. I don’t have any classes until tomorrow afternoon. Shall I drop by for breakfast, then?”

“I’ll tell Betty to expect you,” Sibyl said. She and Dovie, arm in arm, walked Benton to the front door and waited while he climbed into his overcoat. He met Sibyl’s eyes and seemed on the point of leaning in for a kiss. She didn’t move, keeping her arm in Dovie’s and smiling at him.

“Well,” he said, hesitating.

“Good night, Professor Derby,” Dovie said, tightening her grip on Sibyl.

“Good night, Miss Whistler. No welshing, now. I get a recitation of Longfellow from you. I’m holding you to it.”

“Good night, Benton,” Sibyl said. They exchanged a look that promised further discussion tomorrow.

Benton then cocked his hat, said, “Ladies,” with a mock salute, and vanished through the front door.

“Come, dear,” Sibyl said, leading Dovie up the winding front staircase. The girl leaned on Sibyl’s arm, as though the strain of Harlan’s possible departure had robbed her of her strength. Her body felt small and fragile next to Sibyl, birdlike, and as they mounted the staircase Dovie rested her cheek against Sibyl’s shoulder.

“You’ll talk to him tomorrow?” she murmured.

“I will,” Sibyl said, voice grim.

“You promise?” the girl pressed.

Sibyl reached across and patted Dovie’s hand. “I promise,” she said.

They reached the top of the stairs, and Sibyl, her arm around Dovie’s narrow shoulders, ushered her to the door of what had been Eulah’s room. The light under Harlan’s door was out, and the sound of gentle snoring could be distinctly heard from within. Sibyl stopped and rested her hands on Dovie’s shoulders.

“Now then,” she said. “You get your rest. All right? I’m sure we can reason with Harley tomorrow. It won’t do anyone any good to have you up all night worrying, will it?”

“No,” Dovie allowed. “I suppose not. Good night, Sibyl.” She rose on tiptoes to place a quick kiss on Sibyl’s cheek. Sibyl smiled at the sleepy girl, who gave her a wave before stepping through the door to Eulah’s room.

Sibyl stood alone in the hallway, and while she stood there the smile dissolved off her face. She listened to the sounds of the house: a creak, a snore, the ticking of the mantel clock downstairs. Then she turned on her heel and hurried down the hall toward her bedroom.

But when she reached the door, she passed it without entering.

Instead, she glanced left and right, and started down the back service stair. The lights had all been extinguished, and Sibyl had to grope her way down the narrow stairs to the lower hall, which led to the kitchen entrance of the house. Once there she fumbled for one of the castoff overcoats that often hung on some pegs by the back door and struggled into one.

A creak of the kitchen door opening, and Sibyl exclaimed, “Oh!”

She was met with the drawn, freckle-spattered face of Betty Gallagher, one arm propping the kitchen door open, the other holding aloft a small oil lamp.

“Miss Allston!” she exclaimed.

“Betty!” Sibyl gasped, bringing a hand to her chest to quiet the thudding of her heart. “Oh, my goodness, how you startled me. But you’re still here. Whyever haven’t you gone home?”

The cook looked haggard, her red-rimmed eyes blinking rapidly. The fatigue didn’t suit her, Sibyl thought meanly. For the first time, Sibyl thought that Betty looked a little rough around the edges.

“I . . .” Betty started to say. “That is, I had a few things I had to do in the kitchen, and—” She grappled, in search of a credible lie, and then decided to dispense with pretense. “See here, he’s not really going, is he?”

“Who?” Sibyl asked, buttoning up the overcoat. “Harlan?”

“Of course, Harlan!” Betty said, crossly, and Sibyl frowned, hearing the impatience in the other young woman’s voice. Betty had worry lines around her eyes, and sadness around her mouth. If anything, the cook wore the expression of a woman who feels herself too alone.

“Well,” Sibyl said, keeping her reply neutral, “I couldn’t rightly say.” She gazed levelly at Betty, wishing the cook to feel the subtle assertion of her authority. Betty returned the look, glowering under her pale reddish eyebrows.

“I warrant it might be right dangerous, don’t you? If he went,” the cook pressed.

Irritated at the line of questioning, Sibyl said, “Well, I suppose it might be, yes. In any event, I’m glad to run into you. Professor Derby will be joining us for breakfast. I’d like you to plan accordingly.”

A look of pure hatred passed through Betty’s features, so hard and abrupt that Sibyl nearly stepped backward to escape it. The look said that she knew her feelings were of no account, that she was wasting her time, and that she resented them for it.

“Very good, Miss Allston,” the cook said, a perceptible chill in her voice. The anxiety had vanished from Betty’s face, replaced with the subtle, constant anger of the household servant. At that moment Sibyl knew she’d lost her confederate for good. But perhaps she’d never really had her in the first place.

A pause, while Betty seemed on the point of saying something else, when her expression changed again upon noticing that Sibyl had put on an overcoat. “You going out again tonight, then?” she asked, her hostility mollified by curiosity.

“I am,” Sibyl said. Betty hesitated, waiting for Sibyl explain. But she did not.

“Well, all right. We’ll do a Benedict for breakfast, I think,” Betty said, eyeing Sibyl with wariness, shifting into the role she knew was expected of her. “With Canadian bacon. I think we’ve got enough. And I’ll have Rose make the English muffins.”

“Very good, Betty. That sounds fine.” Sibyl paused again, before dismissing the cook by saying, “That’ll be all for tonight.”

The cook, openly frowning, bobbed a quick almost-curtsy—something Sibyl had never seen Betty do in all her years of employment on Beacon Street—and stalked back into the kitchen.

Alone in the darkness and silence of the rear hallway, Sibyl squared her shoulders, drew the shabby overcoat more tightly around her, and stepped out into the night.

She was surprised that she could remember the address. And in truth, the cabbie—when she was finally able to get a taxicab—nearly refused to take her there.

“You wanna go
where
?” he asked, turning around in his seat and roving his eyes over her body, from the crown of her head to the tips of her boots. She fixed him with a defensive stare, folding her arms across her chest. He confirmed his apparent suspicion that she was not the sort of woman who would normally be venturing to that quarter, and so added, “At this hour, miss? You sure?”

Sibyl extended a bill held between her index and middle fingers until it just reached his peripheral vision. “I’m sure,” she said. He plucked the bill from her grasp, shrugged his shoulders, and gunned the car.

They arrived at the nondescript door a short while later, making the trip briskly through the empty streets of nighttime Boston. A few horse-drawn refuse carts made their somnolent way down the alleys, and a handful of private cars rolled past full of fur coats and merriment, either coming from or going to parties. As they went Sibyl gazed out the taxi window, glimpsing isolated men lounging against brick walls, a few ragged boys asleep in a pile. On occasion the cab trundled past clusters of brightly dressed women, idling on street corners and staring at the taxicabs. One of the women caught her eye as Sibyl’s taxi rolled past, and smiled a smile of commiseration at her, showing incongruously yellowed teeth within a still young and attractive face. Sibyl recoiled at first, but then half-smiled back.

She alighted from the taxi and approached the door that she remembered, though the street now was a completely different universe from its afternoon incarnation. Rotting heads of cabbage and bok choy festered in stinking heaps in the gutter, along with splinters of produce crates and refuse. An elderly woman, bent double with age and malnutrition, picked among the shattered crates, collecting the largest pieces for fuel. The rest of the street stood deserted and dark, a few lamps burning in windows, but that was all.