Copperhead (11 page)

Helen knocked on Calendula Smith’s doorknocker (a plain hoop, thankfully), and waited for the butler to formally forbid her to cross the iron threshold. Soon she and Mrs. Smith were seated in the parlor, drinking bergamot tea and eying each other with mutually concealed dislike.

“Dear Helen,” said the woman. “It’s so good to see you.”

“And you, Calendula,” said Helen, not meaning a word of it. This woman had shunned her at first, for the ridiculous and tangled reason of being the best friend of a woman who had wanted Alistair for herself. Helen never could understand being so tied up over a man that you (and all your friends) would hate another woman for his sake. Surely the first woman could have thought of a more interesting reason to hate Helen. Hate her for her copper blond curls, hate her for her blue eyes. But really. A man? And now Calendula Smith, hating Helen merely to stay in her friend’s good graces.

Well, you played the game or it played you.

“Won’t you have another piece of cake?” purred Mrs. Smith. “You’re practically skin and bones.”

“I know, it’s a shame, isn’t it?” returned Helen. “And yet Alistair was just saying how glad he was I hadn’t let my figure go after marriage like some women.”

“Men! Who can predict their bizarre tastes.”

“I was just thinking the same.”

The initial pleasantries exchanged, Helen looked around the room under pretense of admiring it. It was all over roses. A pink rose sofa perched daintily on a red rose rug, and two tasseled rose chairs faced each other. Rose-pink curtains in a gauze that was the very height of fashion draped the windows. It was completely hideous, Helen decided with satisfaction. But she smiled and made nice about the roses (not to mention Calendula’s matching perfume) while deciding exactly how to play her hand.

“Now, Mrs. Huntingdon, come to the point. What can I do for you?”

Concern, Helen decided. Lead in with concern and goose it with gossip. “Well,” she said dramatically. “I was just talking to my sister, Jane, and she said she’d seen you the other day.”

Calendula tensed. Sort of around the shoulders, but Helen caught it. “I wasn’t very interested in her conversation,” Calendula said sharply. “Seems to me she should keep her nose in her own affairs.”

“I’m so glad you feel that way,” said Helen. “I told her it was unthinkable for a woman of your stature to go back to her old face.”

Those perfect eyes narrowed. “I have no idea to what you refer. More tea?”

“Certainly,” said Helen, and leaned back, studying the woman.

Calendula Smith’s fey-brilliant face seemed incongruous on that broad-shouldered, wide-waisted body. But when Helen looked again—no, the woman was stunning after all. Helen had seen it time and again, but that was the brilliance of what Mr. Rochart had done. He had made each person not into some cookie-cutter girl, but into the most dazzling version of themselves. It was why you couldn’t have said for sure with so many of them. You thought they were more beautiful—but was it that they were just more alive, more real?

This woman was not meant to be pretty. She was perhaps not meant to be a dainty little
girl,
although that was the sort of comment Jane was always chiding her for. But what else was Helen supposed to think? Mrs. Smith was built like a man, with a wide frame that strained against the panels of her mauve silk dress. A silk rose dangled incongruously from a waist that even the draped bias cut could not slim. “You should wear slacks,” Helen said, and then put a hand to her mouth, far too late.

“Excuse me?” said Calendula Smith.

Helen valiantly tried to save the situation. “They’re chic, I mean. I’ve been seeing them more frequently. I just thought you could carry them off.”

“Thank you, I suppose,” said Calendula, not sounding terribly mollified. “I’m not sure that slacks would be appropriate for a pillar of society. One has to set an example, you know.”

“One does,” agreed Helen. And then more gently she added, “And sometimes one has to do it by admitting mistakes have been made.” She carefully did not say by whom. “Sometimes only the pillars can lead the way.”

Calendula looked at her for a long time. At last, choosing her words with the air of someone stepping through a minefield, she said, “It’s not just that people are drawn to beauty—though they are. The new face comes with its own glamour—a charisma I never had. And … you don’t know it yet, Mrs. Huntingdon, but you get older and you become invisible. I work for the Children’s Mercy Hospital. I raise funds for them. When I started volunteering, I thought I could really do something. I had all these connections. And yet … people listened to me politely and then went about their business.

“But then I got the new face.”

Helen nodded, feeling the moment like a living thing between them, warm and growing. “And they listened.”

“They all listened. I raised so much money the first year.” Her words spilled out warm and impassioned. “Money we desperately needed. All those families who were barely getting by
before
their fathers died in the war. Mothers who had never had to ask for help before were bringing us children whose illnesses could have been prevented with better nutrition.…” Calendula suddenly recalled herself, and her face shuttered closed. “So you see that things are not as black-and-white as your sister would like to believe.”

Calendula thought she was set against Helen, but the connection between them was there. Helen could find it again. Helen set down her empty teacup and began to unbutton one of the sleeves of her chartreuse jacket. “Do you remember the May Day celebration at my house?” she said.

“I fear my invitation must have gone astray,” Calendula said tartly.

“I am glad to hear that, because it means you were safe,” said Helen, not batting an eyelash. “But surely you heard the rumors.”

“I did,” admitted Calendula. “Bosh, I thought at the time. But then the fey started coming into the city … and I wasn’t sure anymore.”

Helen seized on this moment of genuine connection. “It’s all true,” she said, and then there was only simple truth, as she tried to make this woman hear it. “Shortly after Mr. Rochart gave me the new face. It really happened to me. I was invaded by the fey.”

Calendula swallowed at hearing the tale confirmed. “My brother went to one of those Copperhead meetings,” she said. “He told me of this story. But to hear it from you…”

“I suppose Alistair must have spoken of it,” said Helen. Most of their meetings were men only. She did not like the thought that she was being talked about, but perhaps the confirmation was helping to sway this woman.

Calendula looked away, at the rose-papered walls. “I’m not entirely sure about them,” she said in a low voice. “My brother was filled with such a strange fervor after meeting with them. He said they had such great plans to clean the city of the
dwarvven
. I had thought we were allies—the
dwarvven
hate the fey, too. I do not trust blood heat. But I suppose you must know more what they are about, since your husband is among their leaders.”

Helen bit her lip. “I do not,” she said. She closed her eyes and dared say it. “I am not entirely sure I trust them either.”

Calendula looked back at her. Genuine concern for their future was in her eyes. The connection between them was back again; she was listening to Helen. “What was it like?” she said. “Would I know if I was taken over? I have had such strange dreams.”

“You would know,” Helen assured her. “It was as if I was being erased. I had felt nervous anyway from the shock of the face—from the fey substance being attached. Have you—do you feel it, too?”

Calendula barely nodded.

“But then an actual fey, a whole fey—you know that your new face contains a little piece of fey, right?—came at me to take me over. When we have iron around the doorways we can forbid the entry. But when there’s substance right on your face there’s nothing you can do. It came in and I couldn’t stop it.”

A glint of hope rose in Calendula’s eyes; she could refute Helen’s dire warnings. “But you’re here now,” she said.

“Because Jane was standing a foot away and she drove sharp iron into my arm a few seconds after it happened,” Helen said. “Imagine you’re choking on a grape. That’s the amount of time you have for someone else to save you.” She had finished rolling back her sleeve during the conversation. Now she held out her arm to show the ugly puckered scar marking the flesh above her elbow.

Calendula looked at the scar. Helen saw wavering in her expression. Helen was so close she could taste it. Her fingers closed around the copper hydra and she squeezed it like a talisman. “The fey rips clean through you like the windstorm that tore the cupola off of the Queen’s country house. You’re blown out of your own body. You can’t resist it. Within seconds it’s replaced you and you’re gone for good. And then you can’t help the hospital at all, and what would they do without you?” Helen stared into Mrs. Smith’s eyes, willing her to understand the truth of her words.

Slowly Calendula nodded, her face ashen. “And … there is no other option?”

“Not to be safe,” said Helen. “You’ve seen them outside your door. When is the last time you stepped outside without your mask?”

A wistful look crossed the woman’s handsome face. “I used to love sitting in Chester Park in the summer,” she said. “Not good for the complexion, you know, but how lovely it was to just sit there with your face toward the sun. And we get so little sun … it seemed as though you could soak up enough on those few days to tide you over for the ten months of rain.” She touched her cheek, unconsciously feeling the warmth. “I couldn’t go outside this summer. Had to hurry straight from my car into a building. The mask was so hot in the sun I thought I might blister.”

Helen knew what it was to love something and not be able to do it. She took Calendula’s hands. “I don’t believe your new face had anything to do with the fund-raising at all,” she said. “I think you have the tenacity to do exactly what you did before all on your own. Raise twice as much money for the hospital as any year so far.” Helen meant every word and she willed Calendula to see it. “Will you let us help you? Will you lead the way for the others?”

A beat—breath held, world waiting. Calendula squeezed Helen’s hands in return, her lips set and resolute. “Yes,” she said. “I will.”

*   *   *

Helen left Calendula Smith’s house full of triumph. One down. One promised. One woman, swung to the side of victory for Jane. She thought about writing it down in Jane’s journal, but it seemed as though it would muddy Jane’s notes, and besides, it wasn’t Helen’s style. Writing things down meant someone could find out what you really thought.

Helen hurried along the sidewalk, thinking about that curious thing Calendula had said about Copperhead planning to clean the city of
dwarvven
. Calendula Smith herself did not seem entirely in favor of Copperhead—and she was someone who tried to be at the forefront of society, so that was interesting. Helen had also questioned Calendula about Jane’s visit. But Calendula seemed as stymied by Jane’s disappearance as Helen.

Still, Calendula had been convinced. Helen would get another woman’s name from the journal and go after her next. She was sticking to the plan. Jane would be proud.

The swathes of blue were thick outside Calendula’s house. Helen put her hands in her pockets—found nothing. No iron. She closed her hand on her copper necklace, wishing it were iron.

There was a leaf pile in front of her—orange and red and gold—innocuous except for the blue underneath, oozing out from underneath the leaves. It was as if the blue was eating the leaf pile from the underside, sucking it up like mold. Helen went around, eyes on the pile.

By the time Helen made it to the post office, it was lunch and the place was busy, mostly with men wrapped in thick overcoats and mufflers. The heavily postered walls held the usual mix of advertisements for stamps and bonds, instructions about sending telegrams and what you could not put through the mail. Except there, that mustard-colored poster with the red hydra snake on it—that was certainly new.
ONE PEOPLE. ONE RACE
. Posters on a random warehouse by the wharf had been one thing, but to see them in a government building …

Helen shuddered and turned resolutely away from those thoughts. She charmed her way through the overcoats to a spot near the front of the line. (The
very
front was held by a coat-hanger-thin woman of the strict governess type, and Helen didn’t think her eyelashes would work very well on that.) She still needed to work out what to say in a telegram, a stilted form of communication that squeezed all shades of meaning from your correspondence by making you be so wretchedly
brief
.

“Dear Mr. Rochart, please do not throw yourself out of any windows, but you must brace yourself for a shock of terrible proportions.…”

No, that was not it at all.

In the end she settled for
“BAD NEWS SISTER VANISHED COME IF POSSIBLE SUSPECT BLUE.”
She hoped “blue” would communicate fey to Mr. Rochart; she did not at all trust the skinny rumpled clerk, who looked as if he would immediately sell the penciled pink notecard to the highest bidder if she so much as mentioned
MURDER
or
FEY.

She felt a momentary uplift of pleasure as she exited the post office. She was solving things, and this time it would all come out right.

It was perhaps the combination of winning over Mrs. Smith plus the telegram that made her suddenly turn right and swing down a side street, march across big yellow and blue piles of leaves to do something she would never in a hundred years have thought she would do.

Ask to take charge of a small boy.

Her heart rattled as she knocked on the hydra knocker that hung on the front door.

It was not the same muscular butler as at the meeting the night before. It was a wizened old woman, who said, “An’ ye be human, enter.”

Helen stepped inside to an abruptly dark and empty house. “Where are all the things?” she said.

“Getting cleaned out,” said the woman, who seemed quite happy to talk about it. “He can’t abide anything of hers to be left, he says. First he took
her
out—and all still and quiet cold she was. Then fired all the servants round about midnight, them as been with the family for years. One shock on another, I’ll tell you, and then the constables crawling over it all this morning and so on, and him going out with those ruffian friends of his last night after such a tragedy.” She lingered over her gossip with relish. “And then without a by-your-leave comes back from roulette and starts flinging everybody out around two
A.M.,
brings in three young bucks with broad backs and they ferry furniture out all night and morning, nice electric lights blazing like they’d burn the house down. Dunno where they took all the things. Nothing left but his and Thomas’s beds and some plates. Now me and my daughter come over from next door to help box things and mop. We’ve been with that family for years you see, know the history of the whole street. I daresay he wanted us as we don’t talk too much.”