The Vespertine (10 page)

Disappointment furrowed Edwina's ginger brow. Strumming her fingers on the curve of her lunch pail, she summoned a nearly perfect look of dissatisfied agreement. "Of course." Then, struggling to find another entrance to conversation, she asked, "Have you seen the Mysterious Privalovna yet?"

Patting her hand, I murmured, "Yes. She's a bit of a fraud, I'm afraid."

"Ugh," Edwina said. She dropped her pail at her feet and turned to us. "Why is everything interesting just out of our reach?"

Zora cast off her playfulness, leaning past me to ask, "Edwina, what's the matter with you?"

For a moment, Edwina swore there was nothing the matter. After all, the weather was turning, and she would have a new lawn promenade gown soon. With brown velvet ribbon, even, the screaming height of design. But Zora plucked at her, until Edwina cast her eyes down and offered a soft confession.

"I'm entirely restless lately," she said. I let her take a bite of my apple and watched her face transform as she chose her words. "I've never been anywhere, did you know that? I've never done anything daring. I've never misbehaved."

A warm rush of familiarity filled me. She could be describing my life, up until the very moment I set foot on the docks in the distance. Though I knew in my heart I should be spending my city time learning to be a proper lady who would be an admirable and gentle wife, I couldn't quite bring myself to recommend it. "So let's misbehave a bit. I'm a bit of an expert in getting sent home from school. Would you like to start there?"

"Oh, no," Edwina said, leaning away from me. "I couldn't."

"You just said you wanted to," Zora pointed out.

"My father would—"

Dismissing him with a wave, Zora said, "Dash your father."

Suddenly, Edwina went quite scarlet. "Zora Stewart, honestly!"

"You don't have to be a paragon yet," I suggested, but I already knew that Zora's filthy mouth had ended this conversation.

Sniffing, Edwina gathered her lunch pail. "But I should try, at least!"

We watched her totter away, and when she was out of earshot, I turned to Zora. "You're the most maddening puzzle. Half the time I want to be good like you, and half the time you're so wicked, I don't know what to do."

"That's easy." Zora tugged one of my hair ribbons loose and hopped up to bid me chase. "Be like me all the time, half-good and half-wicked! It will save you ever so much trouble."

I chased her—of course I did. She was bright as any star, and no matter what I was meant to do in Baltimore, I, instead, found myself plotting a course between Zora and Nathaniel, duty abandoned for destiny—setting free the little wildness that grew in my heart. We laughed at the cold and daringly ducked the lattice, playing as the children in short skirts and unbound hair did. As if we had no care in the world.

And I suppose at that moment, we didn't.

***

"So he said, 'Add me to your card.'" Zora tipped the china pot to refresh her cup of tea.

"And Zora said," I cut in, reaching for the milk, "'My reels are spoken for.'"

A mindful hostess, Zora turned to refresh my cup, too, which had the advantage of offering a dramatic pause before she finished the story again. "Then he looked at me just so and replied, 'I'm asking for the waltzes. All of them.'"

Nearly upending the sugar bowl, Mattie clapped her hands on the edge of the table. "Sweet charity, tell it again, Zora!"

Spooning milk through my tea, I laughed and laughed. Mattie had spent much of the dance in repairs of a torn hem. So, like me, she'd missed the brilliant storming of Zora's dance card by one Mr. Thomas Rea, Division Street.

That's how his calling card read, the one he left in our foyer this morning, inscribed with a handwritten
p.r.
on the back—
pour remercier,
for thanks—for Zora, who'd bewitched him til the last of the night.

Playing at a swoon, Sarah batted her lashes and chirped, "'I'm asking for the waltzes.'"

"'All of them,'" I intoned.

Zora bubbled with laughter. "Stop it!"

"How can you ask that of us?" Snapping her fan open, Sarah fluttered it wildly. "This is the most exciting thing that's happened to any of us. I want to live it again and again."

"Well, you know there's always the public dance in Annapolis," Mattie said.

Tea raised to her lips, Sarah stopped before sipping and said, "That's too long a drive if we can't stay the night."

"It's too long a drive without guarantee," Zora agreed. She squeezed the delicate sugar tongs between her fingers, making the silver tick with each compression. "Amelia, tell our fortunes before we resign ourselves to a week-end with cousin Agnes."

A groan went round the table, three voices joined in mutual distress. Quite surprised to be put in a spotlight so suddenly, I looked at them with a helpless smile. "What do you expect me to tell you?"

Zora waved the tongs. "Wondrous things, like last time!"

She was a shameless thing, so I leveled my cup and remarked, "But, Miss Stewart, it's so taxing."

With a distinctly unladylike snort, Zora gave me a poke. "These are our friends. Tax Yourself for our entertainment. Just this once."

"I only saw a dress," I demurred. A sting crossed the back of my neck, and I tried to burn it off with a deep swallow of hot tea. "And a dance. I didn't mean to. It only happened that once."

Too excited now to consider tea or sandwiches, Mattie turned in her chair to offer her hands, to implore me. "Oh, it would be ever so lovely if you tried again!"

Sarah murmured something under her breath, and though I didn't catch it, I noted that it held a hint of derision. It struck a sour note in me, for whispering was rude and deliberately getting caught in a whisper ruder still. Ensuring that the subject of your gossip knew of your disdain was the height of it—even I knew that, country girl that I was.

So despite telling Edwina there was no diversion to be had in my prophesying, I turned to Mattie and squeezed her hands. "For You, I'lltry."

***

Expectant eyes on me, I sat stiffly on a chair in the parlor, taking exaggerated breaths to calm myself. Being watched had the queerest effect—though they expected hysterics, I found myself too embarrassed to provide them.

Shifting my weight from side to side, I folded my hands and unfolded them. I leaned my head back and rolled it all around, but all that came to me was a thin and nervous giggle.

"It's so quiet," I said, then winced with laughter when Mattie jumped. "Beg your pardon."

Sarah held her tight smile, leaning forward to look at Mattie. "Boo, you little mouse."

"I have a nervous constitution. Everyone says so."

"It's all right," Zora said, intervening. She stood up in a flurry of skirts, holding her hands out. "It was a valiant effort, but, alas, our cousin had one sending in her and it was for me. Weep if you must. Try not to hate me!"

As Zora moved to put the room right again, I pulled my chair closer to Mattie's to comfort her. "I'm sure whatever you wanted me to see will come true."

"I didn't know what I wanted," Mattie admitted. So pale, so dear—I wanted to fold her right up and carry her in my pocket, where none of the ugly world could trouble her.

I thought to have a word with Sarah later, for while I appreciated boldness in doses, it was plain to anyone that Mattie did not. Sharp manners and looks only enhanced the tremulousness of her nature, and I thought Sarah's way with her bordered on cruel.

Even now she snapped her fan open and closed, a drumming very like fingers on a board in its repetition. With each furling, Mattie started, little quakes that never entirely subsided, though she knew the source of the sound.

Passing behind her, Zora said lightly, "Then You go away satisfied, don't you?"

"I suppose I do."

Velvet and brocade crackled as Zora threw open the curtains. We all three raised our hands, little moles suddenly exposed to the sky. A shot of liquid gold tore through my fingers.

A reverie came fast over me, sunset's glimmering light spilling a stage before me. A swirl of fireflies coalesced into Sarah's form—it had to be her, for she alone had a gown just for archery. Only
she
pulled back a bowstring with that much accomplishment.

I felt myself rising up, my hands skimming the air to mirror the pull. Closer I came to this gilded image of our sun-swept cousin, until I found myself looking through her eyes. No small amount of pleasure expanded when we took our breath, turned with perfect poise toward the target.

A whip cracked. We dropped to our knees. The crescent shape of the bow quivered as it fell on the remains of a flawed arrow. We pressed our hands to our face. In dusk-drenched gold, there was beauty in the blood that poured through our gloved fingers.

Our admiration breathed once and died when the pain spilled forth after it. A raw, savage agony filled our head. Sobbing, we fell into the cool grass. The sudden, ugly scent of sal volatile burned beneath my nose, and I thrashed.

Gilt gardens melted to the rich mulberry shades of the Stewarts' parlor. Raising my hand to my nose, I cringed away. Three pairs of ravenous, waiting eyes followed me as I tried to find my feet.

"You went insensible;it was amazing," Sarah said, hauling me up on one side.

On the other arm, Mattie asked, "Did You see something for me?"

Trying to find a steady center once more, I freed myself from their grips. Murmuring my thanks, I smoothed my gown and backed away from them. A horrifying pain pressed behind my eye. I wanted to cry.

The first sending had come so sweetly. The message had been so dear that I was happy to carry it. But even as I looked on Sarah and her haughty carriage, I couldn't stand the thought that my own bias had wished an ill sight on me.

She wasn't terrible—she had nothing but kindness for me, and Mattie didn't seem to mind her pecking. Even if she did, no one would deserve such a punishment.

Zora capped the salts, leaving them on the mantel to come to my side. Arms wrapped around me, she murmured, gently reassuring, "I think she swooned, that's all. Too much tea, not enough sandwich."

"Corset's too tight," I agreed.

A bitter guilt overwhelmed me. What if those things I saw were not my heart's desire, but the truth? I owed it to Sarah to warn her against tragedy.

My cheek still stung with the phantom strike, and when I looked on her round face, I saw exactly the course the wound would cross—through her dark, arched brow, across the round of her cheek.

Taken by vertigo, I trembled when I realized that such a wound would sacrifice one of her pretty brown eyes.

I clutched Zora's arm for support and said, "Mind your arrows, Sarah, I beg you."

And then I flung myself toward the kitchen, to be sick in private.

***

Sitting with a basin in her lap, Mrs. Stewart waited for us to twist the eyes from potatoes, then took them to peel. With her apron pinned just so and a cloth draped across her gown, she seemed rather like a nurse.

Well, except that she was missing a white hat and a pocket full of sweets. Oh, and she scolded us instead of petting us, yet again.

"Keeping up this state of high dudgeon plays havoc on a girl's constitution," she said, her knife flashing. "Modern or not, I'm raising ladies here."

Zora kept her eyes down, for I could see that at any moment she might burst out laughing. As I was the one to blame for most of the dudgeon in question, I hardly had room to find delight in the resulting havoc.

"It wouldn't do you a spot of harm to summer in Maine," Mrs. Stewart added. She gently kicked the foot of Zora's chair, reminding her to attend to her posture.

Zora shook a potato at her mother. "Would You risk my going wild just to make a point?"

"I would forget you're all but seventeen and tan your hide!"

For that, I did laugh. I troubled to bury in my hand, pretending to cough. I thought Zora might have a saucy reply, but if she did, a knock at the door cut her off.

The Stewarts only had a downstairs girl on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so Zora jumped to her feet to play the part. After all, there was the odd chance that Thomas might take leave of his senses and drop off another card for her on a day when he'd already left one.

"Sit, you," Mrs. Stewart said, handing off the basin and leaving her lap cloth in the chair to answer it herself. One never knew, and she could hardly risk our reputations by letting us loll at the door, talking to boys before dinner.

Moments later when we heard Thomas' voice, Zora and I nearly broke a neck apiece in our attempt to get to the hallway.

Thomas stood in the foyer, hat in hand—proved tall by comparison to the door behind him. Something troubled him, though. His shoulders curled like they had when Miss Burnside remonstrated him. My heart sank. I prayed there would be no trouble between him and Zora—no obstacle put there, either.

Zora pressed her face against my arm, like she had to gather strength just to put eyes on him. Her breath slipped hot through my sleeve as she whispered, "I take one look, and I want to run away with him."

"Where would you go?"

A warm light came on in Zora's eyes. "Anywhere. Anywhere at all. I shouldn't care if it were Shanghai."

When Thomas turned to leave, I shook Zora and spun her to at least look on him before he went. Across Mrs. Stewart's shoulder, they caught a glimpse and clung to that breathless moment for the little time it lasted.

Then the door closed, and Zora and I scrambled back to the kitchen. We were so clever and graceful in our return that we knocked over Mrs. Stewart's chair and lost three potatoes. With no time to retrieve them, we simply acted as though they belonged there when Mrs. Stewart returned.

"Who was that?" I asked innocently.

Mrs. Stewart put her foot on top of a potato, rolling it beneath her shoe. "I think you know."

Picking up the thread I'd stitched, Zora asked, "Was he on business, Mama?"

"You might say."

One by one, Mrs. Stewart snatched potatoes off the floor; our displays of cheek no longer amused her.

As the mood in the kitchen darkened considerably, Zora and I rededicated ourselves to our chore. Never had anyone found rubbing the eyes from potatoes so arduous and exacting work, the way we did while waiting for Mrs. Stewart to speak.