Blythewood (12 page)

“Which bell was it that rang?” Dame Beckwith demanded,
her voice urgent. I knew instantly that to make the bell ring
must mean something bad. It must mean that my first guess
was right—I did not belong at Blythewood with these beautiful
and educated girls. The stain of my parentage and the taint of
madness had signaled me out. Somehow the bell
knew
I didn’t
belong here and it was ringing out to unmask me just as the
magic harp sang out in “Jack and the Beanstalk.” At the next
table Georgiana Montmorency leaned over to whisper into Alfreda Driscoll’s ear. There was no way to hide. I had to admit
that I had made the bell ring.
I opened my mouth, but Helen spoke first. “It was our bell,
Dame Beckwith. I accidentally pushed it.”
Daisy’s eyes widened at the lie. “That’s not so,” she began.
Helen glared at her, but Daisy went on firmly. “We
all
pushed it.”
Dame Beckwith sighed. “Be more careful next time. The
bells are only to be rung at the correct times. But since this is
your first day”—she smiled—“we shall say no more about it.”

WHEN DINNER WAS over—a delicious meal of roast fowls
and savory pies, baked apples, and pudding—and we were dismissed to our rooms, I drew Helen aside on the stairs.

“Why did you say you pushed the bell?” I asked. “You know
you didn’t.”
Many of the older girls had rushed into the Commons
Room for a card game they called flush and trophies, but Sarah
had gently hinted that the nestlings traditionally repaired to
their rooms on the first night for cocoa parties. She had dispatched Daisy to pick up the supplies in the kitchen and Helen
and me to go upstairs to start a fire in our fireplace.
Helen shrugged. “My cousin told me about a girl who was
thrown out of Blythewood on her first day because her touch
made the bell ring. I didn’t want you thrown out. Who knows
who I’d wind up with as a roommate?”
I blinked at her, surprised that I already rated high enough
in Helen’s estimation that I was preferable to an unknown. “But
why do you suppose it rang for me?”
Helen leaned closer, even though there was no one in sight,
and whispered.

“They say the bells—even the small handbells—can sense
an intruder. Personally I think it’s total rot. How can a metal
bell sense anything? I’ve been catching dribs and drabs of these
Blythewood superstitions since I was a baby. I think all of it—
including the stories of the missing girls—is a bunch of nonsense designed to give the place an aura of mystery so we don’t
all die of boredom walled up here like nuns studying Latin and
bell ringing while
other
girls are dancing at balls and finding
husbands.”

Her blonde curls trembled with genuine anger. Blythewood
was so lovely—and so much finer than any place I had ever been
before going to my grandmother’s house—that it had not occurred to me that some of the girls here would have preferred
to be elsewhere. “So if you ask me, that bell rang because one of
us bumped into the table. I’d wager it was that awful galumphing Camilla.”

“Well, thank you for taking the blame anyway,” I said as we
reached our floor. “I would have hated to be expelled on my first
night.”

“Expelled on your first night?
That
would be an accomplishment even for me.”
The disembodied voice startled me all the more for being
male
and
for coming from an open window.
“Nate!” Helen cried, rushing to the window. “Are you trying to break your neck?”
I followed Helen to the window and craned my head out beside her to see Nathan Beckwith sitting cross-legged on a narrow cast-iron catwalk that hugged the west side of the castle.
His fair hair and pale skin looked ruddy in the light of the setting sun, which was just sinking behind the mountains on the
other side of the river.
“Not at all,” Nathan replied. “Although I am touched to
hear your concern about my neck. Oh, hullo,” he said, noticing
me. “You’re the girl who made the bell ring, aren’t you?
I colored deeply. “Is that what people are saying?” I asked.
“I don’t know about people,” Nathan replied with a sniff as
if the general herd of humanity was beneath his notice. “I was
in the kitchen cadging leftovers from Cook when I overheard
my mother say to old Peale that he should keep an eye on you
when you handle the bells. Capital of you to step in like that and
take the blame, Helen.”
Beside me Helen blushed and dimpled, trying not to smile.
“Well, I couldn’t let her get kicked out, could I? We’ll both be,
though, if anyone sees us talking to a boy in dormitory.” Helen
glanced nervously behind us. The landing was still empty, but
on the stairs we could hear voices of girls making their way up.
“Come on out here, then,” Nathan suggested. “No one will
see you and you can watch the sunset with me. Don’t you want
a breath of fresh air before you’re stuck inside all night with a
bunch of giggling girls drinking cocoa?”
A moment ago I’d been looking forward to the cocoa party.
It was another detail I’d read about in Mrs. Moore’s books—
nighttime dormitory feasts where girls sat around in their
nightgowns braiding each other’s hair and telling ghost stories—but now I wondered if rumors of my making the bell ring
were spreading around the school. How well would I fit in with
the other girls if they thought I was an intruder? Suddenly I felt
as though I were suffocating.
“That sounds lovely,” I said, edging past a startled Helen
and picking up my skirts to climb through the window. Nathan
Beckwith’s gray eyes widened with surprise. Apparently, he
hadn’t thought we’d be brave enough to join him.
“Well, shove over,” I said, “unless you want us both to end
up cracked like eggs on the flagstones below.”
Behind me, Helen yelped and exclaimed, “Well, I suppose
one
of us has to get the fire going for cocoa.” When I looked
back she was gone.
“That’s funny,” I said, settling myself on the catwalk. “Why
would she go?”
“Fear of heights,” Nathan explained, grinning.
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought Helen van Beek was afraid
of anything.”
“That’s what she likes people to believe, but when we were
ten I dared her to climb up to the roof of her house and she froze
there. I had to carry her down.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t an excuse to get you to carry her?”
I asked, remembering what it had felt like when the dark-eyed
boy had caught me in the air, his arms around my waist. But I
had only imagined that.
“I suppose . . . but would she have spit up all over my shirt,
then? You don’t seem at all afraid of heights, though. You look
as comfortable as an eaglet in its cliff-side aerie.”
I smiled at the image. Perhaps it wasn’t the most flattering comparison a boy could make—weren’t boys supposed
to compare your skin to milk and your cheeks to roses?—but
then, what did I know of boys? Mother had always forbidden me to talk to them. And yet here I was, sitting only a few
feet away from one with no one else around. I smiled, thinking that while my mother might disapprove, Tillie would be
proud of me.
And I hardly felt awkward at all. In fact, I felt peculiarly
comfortable—snug in the nest of wrought iron with the river
valley spread out below us. The sun had slipped behind the
mountains, turning their dark, undulating slopes purple and
blue. The banks of the clouds beyond them could have been another range of mountains—lilac and pale blue and silver in the
distance. The Hudson shimmered with a mysterious glow, as if
it held secrets below it that it was carrying swiftly toward the
ocean. It was strange to think that it was the same river that I’d
seen from the windows of the city apartments where I’d lived
all my life. I understood now why my mother had always found
us lodgings with a view of the Hudson: the river was the thread
that connected her to Blythewood. Now it was the thread that
tied me to my old life.
To Nathan I said, “I guess I’m just accustomed to heights. I
used to climb the fire escape onto the roof whenever I needed
a breath of air. In the city it’s the only place where you can be
alone and think.”
“Yes, fire escapes also come in quite handy if you need to
make a quick escape from a police raid or a jealous husband.”
I glanced over at him. He was rolling a cigarette, his eyes
cast down. Now that the sun had set, his face had turned pale
again and I noticed lavender smudges beneath his eyes. “What
kind of places do you frequent that the police raid, Mr. Beckwith?”
“Well, Miss Hall, it’s not really a subject for a lady’s ears,
but there are certain establishments that purvey the most illuminating elixirs.”
“Opium joints, you mean.”
He was so startled that he dropped the cigarette paper he
had been rolling. It slipped between the slats of the metal grate,
was caught by the wind, and fluttered toward the river like the
first pale moth of evening. “What do you know of those places?” he asked.
“Mother and I lived in Chinatown one year, and there was
one in our building. Fancy coaches and hansom cabs pulled
up in front all night long, and men and women, cloaked to disguise themselves, would slip into the building. Later, when they
came out, they wouldn’t bother to hide their faces. They always
looked as if they were walking in a dream. I watched the same
ones come and go for months until their faces changed and they
began to look like they were in a nightmare . . . then they would
stop coming altogether. Sometimes an ambulance would arrive—”
“Stop!” Nathan cried, holding up his hands. “I’ll never
go to one again. You’re worse than the settlement house reformers.”
“I wasn’t trying to reform you, Mr. Beckwith,” I said, trying not to smile as I glanced at his flushed face. “What you
do is your own business. I’m sure if you frequent the opium
joints you have a reason. My mother always said we should
pity the poor souls who came there because something
in their lives had caused them a terrible pain and this was
what they did to forget that pain. . . .” My voice trailed off
as I thought about my mother drinking laudanum in the last
months of her life. What pain had
she
been trying to forget?
Slowly I became aware that Nathan was staring at me with
eyes so wide they looked like silver disks reflecting the lilac
evening light. In the fading light I saw that the smudges under
his eyes were a deep mauve, the same color as the shadows under his cheekbones and in the hollows of his throat exposed
by his unbuttoned shirt. The evening shadows seemed to be
creeping over his skin, threatening to take him. A breeze from
the river, as chill as if it had traveled straight from its icy headwaters in the northern mountains, ruffled his fair hair and we
both shivered.
I recalled what Sarah had said about Nathan’s fatherless
childhood at Blythewood being the cause of his bad behavior at all his schools. What had he seen here? And why had he
been interested in my mother’s disappearance from the school?
He looked as if
he
were disappearing into the shadows. I was
tempted to reach out and grab him to keep him from slipping
away, but then he spoke in a voice as cool as the evening air.
“What an extraordinary imagination you have, Miss Hall. I
can assure you I only visit those places for
larks
 . . . much like the
cocoa party you will be late for if you do not hurry.”
“Oh yes,” I said, taking his hint. I’d managed to shock even
the resident reprobate. Sarah Lehman had been right: I had
better not reveal my lowly origins to anyone else here at Blythewood. I gathered my skirts and crawled back through the
window. When I was on the landing I looked back to say good
night to Nathan Beckwith, but decided not to disturb him. He
now looked entirely lost to the shadows.
z
o
Z

After that wind on the catwalk, the roaring fire was a welcome
sight as I entered my room—as were the faces of the five girls
gathered around the fireplace.

“There you are!” Helen cried, scrambling to her feet and
rushing across the room to pull me into the circle. “You must
have gotten lost looking for Cam and Beatrice and Dolores.
And look—you didn’t need to go invite them to join us. They invited themselves!” She squeezed my arm and widened her blue
eyes at me. Clearly Nathan was to remain our little secret—as
was the fact that she’d had no intention of inviting the three
girls to our cocoa party.

“We just figured the more the merrier, right-o, Dolly?”
Cam said, clapping Dolores on the back and jolting the frailboned girl so that she spilled milk from the pail she was hanging over the fire. “And this way we can pool our booty. Bea and
Dolly have got some lovely chocolates from Vienna and I have
the tin of biscuits my mother packed for my train ride. I hardly
ate a bite I was so excited to be on a train for the first time. Do
you want to hear the states I went through?”

“We were just telling how we all came to be Blythewood
girls,” Helen interrupted. I could see that she was put off by
Cam’s blunt manners. “Camilla’s from a ranching family in
Texas. She’s been telling us how very rich they are.” She widened her eyes, obviously aghast at the idea of someone talking
so openly about money. “Of course Ava and I are
legacies
, and
so are Dolores and Beatrice, but Daisy here was
discovered
by a
teacher at her school. Isn’t that interesting?”

Daisy paused from spooning cocoa into the milk pail and
looked up, blushing. “I wouldn’t say
discovered
exactly. My
music teacher, Miss Baines, was an alumna of Blythewood.
She thought I would do well here, and so a committee of Blythewood women came to Kansas City to interview me. It was a
most peculiar interview.”

“How?” I asked eagerly, wondering if Daisy had seen her
interviewers turn into crows as I had.
“They asked me a lot of questions about Latin and such—
I’ve always been quite good at languages, Mother says because
I have a musical ear—but then they blindfolded me and had me
listen to a series of bells and describe to them what the sounds
reminded me of.”
“Crickets!” Cam exclaimed. “They blindfolded me, too,
and had me shoot arrows. I’m a crack shot, if I say so myself, but
I’d never tried it blindfolded. Queer thing was, I hit the bull’seye on every single one.”
“Most curious,” Beatrice said, narrowing her hooded
brown eyes at Cam. “Papa says that the selection committee recruits for particular skills to enhance the student body. If only
the children of alumnae were allowed to attend, Blythewood
would become quite stale. You are new blood.”
“My mother says old blood is the best,” Helen said.
“Mmmm . . . the cocoa smells almost done. Shall I pour? I always do for tea.”
No one objected to Helen pouring the steaming frothy
chocolate into teacups bearing the Bell and Feather insignia.
“We’re all here for a reason,” Beatrice opined somberly,
blowing on her hot cocoa.
“I can’t imagine what the reason could be for me,” Helen
moaned. “I’ll be missing the season in New York. I don’t know
how I’ll ever find a husband here when Ava’s gone and taken the
only eligible young man on the premises.”
I opened my mouth to object that I certainly hadn’t taken
anyone, but Helen was on to a new idea. “I know, let’s find out
who will marry first! We’ll toss hazelnuts into the fire. Here—I
stole a bunch from the kitchen just for this reason.”
“My aunt Lucille always says that divination is wicked,”
Daisy said. “We shouldn’t try to know what the Lord has in
store for us.”
“Then whyever did God make hazelnuts?” Helen replied
promptly. “Or give us minds to wonder? Here.” She handed a
nut to Daisy. “All you do is toss it in the fire whilst reciting this
poem: