Blythewood (43 page)

Helen and Daisy came first. Helen screeched when she saw my
hair. “It’s the exact shade of the Countess Oborensky’s hair
when she was presented at court. However did you get it? Is
it . . .” she lowed her voice,
“dyed?”

“It will be lovely when it grows in,” Daisy said diplomatically, eyes riveted to my scalp.
“I think I may keep it short,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll start a fad.”
Daisy looked scandalized, but Helen only laughed. “I’m glad
you came through the fire with your humor intact. You’ll need
it to bear the events Beckwith has planned for you—speakers,
fêtes, high teas, parades. You’re to get a heroine’s reception
once you’re out of this cell. Why are you still here anyway? You
look fit as a fiddle . . . rather better than you did before, as a matter of fact.”
I smiled at Helen’s backhanded compliment. “I still have
some pain in my hands and along my back, but I’ll be out soon.
Catch me up on all the news, will you? I don’t want to feel a
complete ninny when I make my reappearance.”
Helen readily obliged, as I knew she would. I was happy to
have the attention focused away from my strange new looks
and lingering injuries—and my mind taken off whether Raven
had survived the fire or not—by Helen’s gossip. I learned that
not everyone was thrilled with my new status as heroine.
Georgiana Montmorency had loudly proclaimed at dinner one night that I had led the Darklings out of the woods
with my torch and had been stopped by the Dianas. Cam had
promptly risen to her feet and socked Georgiana in the jaw. A
fight had broken out between Georgiana’s friends and mine.
Interestingly, not all of her friends had not come to Georgiana’s aid. In fact, Alfreda Driscoll had been seen dumping a
blancmange over Georgiana’s head, effectively quelling the
outburst—although Dolores Jager had gotten in one more jab
at one of Georgiana’s cohorts.
“Dolores? Really?” I asked, finding it hard to imagine the
melancholy quiet girl taking part in a brawl.
“I wouldn’t underestimate Dolores,” Daisy said. “The next
day Georgiana’s hair turned green after using a soap I saw Dolores leaving in the showers.”
“Well at least I’m not the only one with a new hair color,” I
said, smiling at the image of Georgiana with green hair. “But
does anyone else think I was leading the Darklings to attack
Blythewood?”
“Oh, no!” Daisy and Helen both said together. “The next
day Dame Beckwith, after giving us all fifty demerits for fighting, announced that it had been Sarah Lehman who had summoned the Darklings and you were a hero for defeating them.”
“But it wasn’t the Darklings who were attacking; it was the
shadow creatures—the
tenebrae
.”
Daisy and Helen exchanged an uneasy glance. “Are you really sure?” Daisy asked, taking my hand. “When the shadows
burned away we all saw the Darklings. It looked as if they had
summoned the shadows.”
“But they were trying to protect the woods from the shadow creatures. Nathan knows the truth  .  .  . and Miss Sharp.
What do they say?”
Daisy and Helen exchanged a guilty look. “Um . . . they’ve been
busy,” Daisy said. “And they’ve been staying at Violet House.”
“Because of Louisa,” Helen said softly.
I flushed, embarrassed that I hadn’t asked about Louisa
right away. “How is she? Has she recovered from her stay in
Faerie?”
They looked at each other again and then Daisy said, “Not
exactly
. She only wants to play cards all the time and she has
this vacant look in her eyes.”
“That description could fit my mother,” Helen said tartly.
I was about to tell her she shouldn’t jest, but then she added,
“But you should see Nathan. He sits with her all day playing
cards. He’s the only one who can keep her calm. That’s why
they’re at Violet House—that and to keep Louisa from running
back into the woods.”
“Poor Nathan,” I said, wondering if
his
shadows had been
banished now that Sarah was gone. I recalled what my mother
had said about him—that I was the only one who would be able
to keep the shadows from claiming him. But how could I do
that? “He worked so hard to get Louisa back.”
“Yes, well things don’t always work out as we plan,” Helen said. “And speaking of plans . . . this letter arrived for you a
few days ago. I saw it in the post and nabbed it before anyone
else could see it and wonder why you’re receiving mail from a
strange man in Scotland.”
I snatched the envelope out of Helen’s hand and ripped it
open.
“Why
are
you receiving mail from a strange man in Scotland, by the way?”
“It’s from Mr. Farnsworth, the librarian at the Hawthorn
School. He has a copy of the book I’ve been looking for—
A
Darkness of Angels
. He says he’s setting sail for New York in a
few days—on April tenth. What day is it now?” I asked anxiously, realizing I’d completely lost track of the days.
“April fifteenth,” Helen replied. “He should be in New York
in a few days, then. About the time my parents are returning
from their trip. I had a letter from Daddy a week ago saying
they had run into your grandmother in London and that they
were traveling back to New York together. Does he say what
ship he’s on?”
I flung the bedclothes away, ignoring Helen’s questions.
She probably wanted to gossip about who else she knew crossing the Atlantic. “I have to get up and start moving around so
I’m ready to go into New York to meet him,” I said.
Helen picked up the letter from the bed and read it. “Ah,”
she said, “he
is
coming in on the same ship as my parents and
your grandmother.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You can barely remember your declensions. How can you remember the name of the ship?”
“That’s easy,” Helen replied. “Everyone’s heard of the
Titanic
. It’s the ship built to be unsinkable.”

THAT EVENING I had a nightmare. I was standing looking
up at a range of great ice mountains, cliffs of black ice looming over me, making me feel smaller and smaller . . . because
the cliffs were gliding steadily toward me to crush me in their
icy maws. The worst part, the part that gripped me in an icy
sweat, was when I realized that the cliffs were alive. They
were ice giants come to smash me to bits and drag me to the
bottom of the sea.

I awoke in the dark to find Helen sitting on the side of my
bed, her face in the moonlight as white and immobile as one of
the ice cliffs.

I thought she was talking about my dream at first, but then
she said. “The
Titanic
has sunk.”
“But that can’t be,” I replied blearily. “You just told me it
was unsinkable . . .” But already I knew it was true—that it was
just as in my dream. The ice giants had come to destroy the ship
that carried Mr. Farnsworth . . . and my grandmother and Agnes and Helen’s parents.
I got up and got dressed in a numb daze, barely hearing
what Helen—and then others who came and went—had to say.

There were conflicting reports. The
Titanic
was being towed
into port by another ship, the
Titanic
was at the bottom of the
ocean; everybody had been saved, nobody had been saved.

Somehow I managed to get myself ready to travel to New
York. Daisy had packed for both Helen and me. She wanted
to come with us, but I heard myself telling her to stay. “We’ll
need you when we get back,” I told her, although I was not sure
what I meant.

Then we were in the coach and Gillie was taking us to the
train station. A fog covered River Road, just as it had on my first
day at Blythewood—a cold fog that came, I felt sure, straight
from the arctic sea where the ice giants had calved their lethal
bergs and sent them to destroy the
Titanic
. Even now one might
loom in the fog.

“Poor lass,” Gillie said when he carried our bags down to
the station. Helen stood like a statue, staring at the river as if
watching for a ship to come out of the fog with her parents safely delivered.

“Yes,” I agreed, “I hope her parents are all right.”
“I hope so, too,” Gillie said, “but it was you I was talking
about. You’re barely recovered from you own trials. How do
your hands feel?”
“My hands feel fine,” I said, flexing them under their light
kid gloves. “My back still hurts, though, right along the shoulder blades. The fire must have run straight down them, but I’ll
be all right. To tell the truth, I’m glad to be up and away—not
that I’m glad for the reason,” I added, seeing that Gillie was
staring at me oddly.
“Nay, you’re right,” he said, “better for you to get away. You
let us know when you hear any news . . . as soon as ye see Agnes
Moorhen . . .” His voice faded and my mouth went dry.
Agnes
. I
hadn’t even let myself think that Agnes might not be all right.
Seeing the look on my face Gillie clamped his large hand to
my shoulder. “She’ll have come through all right,” he said. “It
would take more than a hunk of ice to sink our Agnes.”
Helen was silent on the journey down, staring out the window at the fog-cloaked river. I’d never known her to go so long
without uttering a word. When we arrived at the Grand Central Station Terminal she wanted to go straight to the White
Star Line offices to get what information we could, but I convinced her we should go to her house first and wait for news.
What news had reached the shipping offices now was likely not
to be reliable.
We took a taxi to Washington Square. It was strange to be
in the city again, passing familiar sights that no longer looked
familiar, perhaps because I had learned so much about the
world since I had last walked these streets, and now I suspected
every shadow or wondered if all the people on the streets were
entirely human. Or perhaps it was because I’d never looked at
those streets from the window of a taxicab.
The van Beek townhouse was smaller than I had imagined it would be, a narrow brownstone with rooms painted in
somber colors, the furniture draped in canvas looming out of
the shadows like ghosts. The housekeeper apologized for not
having the house ready and then burst into tears. I expected
Helen to chide her but instead she patted the woman on the
arm and said, “There, there, Elspeth,” and asked if there’d
been any news. There was a stack of wires and letters, mostly
from friends and family asking if Helen had heard anything.
I convinced Helen to go to bed, promising her that we’d get
up first thing in the morning and walk over to the White Star
Line offices to check the lists of survivors. Before we went to
bed I made Elspeth promise to wake me first if there was any
news.
The next three days were a blur of raised hopes, dashed expectations, and tortuous waiting. The early survivor lists were
contradictory. Mrs. van Beek and my grandmother were listed
as survivors on one and as victims on another. Agnes and Mr.
van Beek weren’t mentioned on either. Nor could I find Mr.
Farnsworth’s name on any of the lists.
Finally on the night of the eighteenth we heard that the
Carpathia
had been sighted coming into harbor with the survivors. We rushed down to the pier where she was expected to
dock and waited in the rain with the largest crowd I’d ever seen
assembled. When the survivors began to disembark, the crowd
came to life. Names were called out. Men and women pushed
through the crowd to embrace survivors. Some fainted. Helen
stood, her face stony, until she spotted someone.
“Mama!” she cried, her face turning instantly younger. I
could barely keep up with her as she pushed through the crowd.
As we got nearer I saw that Mrs. van Beek was clutching the
arm of another woman—my grandmother. I searched the faces
around them, my heart sinking when I didn’t see Agnes . . . but
then, a little way back up the gangplank I spied, above the heads
of the crowd, a navy feather.
“Agnes!” I cried. The feather twitched at the sound and a
gloved hand shot up beside it. By the time I reached Helen and
her mother and my grandmother, Agnes had reached them as
well. I threw my arms around Agnes’s neck.
“Well!” I heard my grandmother say. “I’m glad to see you’re
happy
one
of us is alive.” I let Agnes go and threw my arms
around my grandmother. Under her heavy wool coat she felt
small and frail and her mouth seemed to be crumpling.
“Now, now,” she tutted. “Let’s not make a fuss. You didn’t
think Miss Moorhen would let me drown, did you? What do I
pay her for if not to take care of such details?”
Agnes rolled her eyes and whispered into my ear. “You
should have seen the trouble I had getting her to wear a lifejacket.”
I started to laugh at the image, but then I saw Helen. She
was looking around the crowd, her eyes skittering from stranger to stranger until they landed back on her mother.
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked.

I stayed at the van Beeks’ through the rest of April and into early May, at first to see Helen through the early days of grief and
then to help her sort through the morass of financial entanglement that descended on the van Beek household.

It seemed that Mr. van Beek had fallen deeply into debt
over the last few years, something to do with a bad investment
and then an attempt to recoup his losses that went even worse.
Intimations of his losses had been coming for months. Having failed to prevail on his wife to curtail expenses, Mr. van
Beek had confided his concerns to Helen to see if she might
talk sense to her mother. That had been the subject of all the
letters going back and forth between Helen and her parents.

The situation, though, was made far worse by Mr. van
Beek’s death. I couldn’t make much sense of the explanations
given by the men in dark suits who descended on the house like
a murder of crows and, I saw, neither could Helen or her mother. So I called Agnes in to help. She came in a trim navy suit
with a cerulean feather in her straw boater, and Mr. Greenfeder
in tow. Together they marshaled the lawyers and accountants
into order. Within a day she’d written up a clear report for Mrs.
van Beek and sent Mr. Greenfeder on errands around the city
to see what could be done to investigate the circumstances of
Mr. van Beek’s failed investments. When she was done, she left
mother and daughter in the library and came out to talk to me
in the parlor.