The Horsemaster's Daughter (66 page)

A
t Number 32, Dumbarton Street in Georgetown, Abigail nearly stumbled in her haste to reach her chamber. She, Helena and her father had arrived home late, and by that time her discomfort was extreme. She managed a cordial good-night to her sister and father, then retreated to the privacy of her third-floor room. The narrow stairwell of the Georgian-style town house never seemed steeper than it did after a night of dancing and engaging in pointless conversation.

Before retiring, she and Helena had unfastened each other’s bodices and corsets so as not to wake Dolly. Many ladies of quality thought nothing of rousing their personal servants at all hours, but Helena and Abigail would never dream of doing so. The housekeeper had left a ewer of hot water on the wash-stand, and it was still lukewarm. Abigail threw a handful of Epsom salts into the basin, set it on the floor and poured in the water. Then, issuing a sigh of relief, she untied and removed her shoe. With an even deeper sigh, she sank her right foot into the water and shut her eyes. The sharp pains that arched through her foot were as intimately familiar as the loneliness that crept upon her at odd moments.

She leaned back in the chair, glowering at the discarded prisonlike boot she had worn for as long as she could remember, day in and day out. When she was small, she used to pray for the ugly, twisted limb to grow into a dainty well-shaped foot that matched the left one.

Now that she was grown, she had given up praying for the impossible. She’d been born with the affliction and she would die this way. In between, she would stumble through dances and promenades with her secret concealed beneath the hem of her gown. That was to be her lot in life, and she was determined to accept it. With weary eyes, she stared at her bad foot in the water.

Her mother had died moments after giving birth to Abigail—an undersize newborn with a deformed foot. What a terrible curse that must have been to Beatrice Gavin Cabot, renowned for her fortune, her pride in being married to an ambitious young senator and her joy in her first daughter, Helena. What grief Abigail’s mother must have suffered, holding her malformed second baby while bleeding to death. In Abigail’s mind, the tragedy was always and inexorably linked to her imperfection. It was something she lived with every day, a shadow that moved beside her with every crooked step she took.

But maudlin thoughts were as annoying as they were pointless, so she pushed aside her bleak reflections and lifted her foot from the warm water.

She shed her gown and undergarments, hanging them in the dressing room and putting on a floor-length nightgown and robe. Donning a pair of carpet slippers, she left the room as quietly as she could. The slippers did not correct her limp as well as the specially made shoe did, but she had only a short way to go. Opening a low, narrow doorway at the end of the hall, she climbed the stairs to the roof.

The midnight sanctuary welcomed her. It was the one place she always belonged, because it belonged wholly to her. Ever since she was very young, Abigail had harbored an intense fascination with the night sky. At the age of five, she suffered terrible troubles in her sleep, and took to creeping to the window at night and sitting for hours, staring up at the stars. As her schooling progressed, she used to devil her tutors with questions about the vast universe until she exhausted their knowledge. Finally her father had engaged an impoverished mathematics student at Georgetown who’d given her a map of the stars and a folio of photographs made of the stars and planets.

She’d saved her clothing allowance for years in order to build her rooftop sanctuary—Abigail’s folly, her father and sister called it—but they had learned long ago not to argue with her about her abiding passion. And so Abigail Cabot became the only woman in the capital to own an observatory.

It was not ideal, for the thick atmospheric conditions at sea level often interfered with her stargazing. Still, she made do, only occasionally yearning for clearer, brighter skies.

The swiveling domed structure was patterned after the private observatory of Maria Mitchell, the most eminent astronomer in the country, now retired and living on her pension from Vassar Female College. But Abigail had a gift even the great Professor Mitchell lacked. She could see sharper and farther with her naked eye than anyone on record.

She had always been blessed, or cursed, depending on how one looked at it, with almost inhumanly acute vision, always the first to see a ship on the horizon, or a flock of migrating geese overhead. Her strong perception of color showed her springtimes so green her eyes smarted, and autumns so intensely orange and gold that her heart ached. Struck by the beauty around her, she often felt twinges of sentiment she didn’t understand.

When she picked out constellations others couldn’t see without a telescope, people used to think she was playing a hoax, but a series of tests at the university and the Naval Observatory proved her claim. Perhaps this was how nature had compensated Abigail for her damaged foot.

The moon had set, creating a better field for naked-eye viewing. For a few moments, she forgot her ennui about earthly matters, sat down on a low stool and lost herself among the stars. Although the sensation was decidedly unscientific, she felt herself moving beyond the earth, beyond the known world into something infinite and mysterious.

Drawing in a breath of crisp autumn air scented by wood smoke and drying leaves, she swept the sky with her gaze.

“Hello, Mother,” she whispered to the woman she had never known. “I danced tonight. With Lieutenant Boyd Butler. It was so wonderful. You would have been proud of me—” She broke off, her musings rudely invaded by the image of her nearly falling, then finding herself caught in the arms of the insolent Jamie Calhoun.

She scowled away the memory and continued. “The vice president’s son. Can you imagine, Mother? Of course you can. Father was a politician’s son, too. Perhaps it’s in our blood to love men who govern. Mr. Calhoun—another man I met tonight, but he’s quite a different sort than Lieutenant Butler—claims it is not love at all because it doesn’t make me want to weep and rage and pound the floor and tear my hair out. Of course, none of it matters, anyway. Boyd Butler will never know what is in my heart, and it will be another of my secrets. So. I just thought you’d want to know that. Good night, Mother. I love you.”

Abigail’s whisper faded into the chill air. She came up here every night not just to engage in fanciful one-sided conversations with a ghost, but to study the sky. And not just because it was beautiful and vast and mysterious, though it was all of those things. She was looking for something.

She was looking for a comet.

When she told this to people, they often looked baffled and shook their heads. “Wouldn’t it be easier to find a needle in a haystack?” they would ask.

Abigail never expected it to be easy. She didn’t ever expect to give up, either. Helena might sort through their mother’s jewels and pictures, looking for her in old keepsakes, but Abigail knew better. If she were ever to find her mother, it would be up in the vast night sky, hidden among the stars.

“Good morning, Papa dearest.” Bursting into the dining room, Helena sang the greeting off-key, causing him and Abigail to wince. “Good morning, sister dearest.” Leaning down, she kissed each of them. “And what a beautiful day it is.”

Their father smiled indulgently and set aside his
Washington Post,
which he had been studying with deep absorption. Removing his silver-rimmed spectacles from their perch on his nose, he stood to hold out Helena’s chair for her. “Indeed it is.”

Abigail had supplied him with the same information a few minutes before, but he must have forgotten. She smiled at Helena, too; she couldn’t help it. Someone as comely as her sister should be an object of flaming envy, but the fact was, Helena’s looks were no more her fault than Abigail’s foot was hers.

Their father offered Helena a basket of biscuits and jam, and she thanked him with a smile. “Coffee?” he offered.

“Yes, please.”

A maid stepped forward to fill her cup.

“Abigail?” their father asked, “would you like some coffee?”

“I drink tea, Father. Thank you, though.” She drank tea at breakfast every single morning.

Abigail loved the mornings when the three of them had breakfast together. Franklin Rush Cabot was not a demonstrative father, and time spent with him was precious. Sometimes she thought Helena avoided serious talk of marriage because she did not wish to leave their father. He was the only constant in their lives, the sun around which they orbited.

“Have you plans for the day?” he asked Helena.

She nodded, her coppery curls erupting with the motion. “I have a dress fitting with Miss Finch. She’s apprenticed to Madame Broussard, you know.” Helena propped her elbow on the table, cupped her chin in her hand. “I would so love to have a gown designed by Madame herself, but they say her waiting list is over a year long.”

He lifted a bristly eyebrow. “Is that so? I’ll see what I can do.”

Helena beamed. “Thank you, Papa. Oh, I am so lucky to be your daughter.”

He pushed the spectacles up his nose and returned to his perusal of the paper. “The luck is mine, I assure you,” he said. “What about you, Abigail? You could do with a new frock, couldn’t you?”

She flushed. “My plans for the day are a bit different. I must go to Foggy Bottom to help Mr. Hockett calibrate his ship’s chronometer.”

“Perhaps Hockett’s the lucky one, then,” her father murmured without looking up.

Abigail smiled at him, but he didn’t see. Charismatic and brilliant, he took obvious pride in Helena’s looks and in Abigail’s accomplishments, yet he always seemed to expect more than either sister could give.

She studied her father, the lines etched in his sternly handsome face, the precise creases of his boiled collar stark against his ruddy skin, the lambent eyes concealing a world of thoughts. A wave of yearning swept over her. She wanted to take his hand, to ask him what he was thinking, but she didn’t dare. He withheld something of himself; Abigail couldn’t put her finger on it, but she sensed that he wanted just one more elusive thing, and if she could give it to him, his happiness would be complete.

He had the subtle, wounded reserve of a longtime widower who had never found the heart to remarry. That quality alone caused female hopes to rise, and over the years a parade of ladies had vied for his attention, but he’d never chosen another wife. That made the sisters feel even more responsible for his happiness.

“Mr. Hockett insisted on my help,” Abigail explained, although neither Father nor Helena had asked. “He used another calibrator last time and was more than a second off.”

“Is that so?” His tone indicated a decided lack of interest. Then he motioned with his hand, and the maid came forward to pour more coffee.

Abigail knew her father loved her, but he didn’t
see
her. She kept thinking that if she did the right thing—discovered her comet, found support for his issues in the legislature, married the right man—her father would finally open all of his heart to her. Then again, she was probably dissecting the situation with too much thought—a habit of hers.

“If I needed something calibrated, I would certainly pick you to do it,” Helena declared loyally, then turned to her father. “Is there an account of the wedding?”

“Indeed there is.” He pushed a folded section of the
Post
toward her. “A long column by Timothy Doyle. Read the last bit. You’re mentioned several times.”

“I cannot possibly read a word until I’ve had my coffee,” Helena declared, swirling a spoonful of sugar into her cup. She slid the paper over the table to Abigail. “Read me the important parts.”

Abigail folded back the thin broadsheets. This was yet another reason she could never resent her sister. Helena needed her too much. In a far less obvious way, Helena was as damaged as Abigail.

“Ah, here you are. ‘Miss Helena Cabot was resplendent in a gown from La Maison d’Or of New York, and was seen to dance with Mr. Troy Barnes on two occasions, and Lieutenant Boyd Butler once.”’ Abigail’s voice thickened as she read his name; she prayed her father and sister hadn’t noticed.

“Resplendent,” Helena repeated, clasping her hands. “Such a lovely word. Equal parts splendid and…” She thought for a moment, then inspiration flashed. “Redundant.”

“I’m very pleased with your conduct last night, my dear. Both Barnes and Butler are extremely suitable.” Father set aside his coffee cup and gave Helena his full attention. She fairly blossomed under his regard, a rose turning its center to the sunlight. “As you know, your future is of paramount concern to me. Lieutenant Butler in particular would make a remarkable catch. It would not displease me if you were to encourage his suit.”

“Then of course I shall,” Helena said with a breezy wave of her hand. “If Lieutenant Barnes—”

“Butler,” he corrected.

“If Lieutenant Butler meets with your approval, Father, then I’m sure he’s entirely suitable,” Helena said.

With clinical attention to detail, Abigail measured sugar for her tea. She estimated the weight of the sugar crystals to be six grams, and she was probably not far off the mark. Yet the measuring failed to distance her from the conversation. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Of all the men scrambling to court her sister, their father had chosen Lieutenant Boyd Butler.

For perhaps a tenth of a second Abigail considered mounting an objection. But even before the thought was fully formed, she crushed it. Admitting her feelings for the lieutenant would only confuse a simple matter. And it
was
simple. Butler’s heart belonged to Helena; Father’s expectations had been raised for a suitable marriage. He always got his way—eventually.

Abigail had taught herself long ago to confine her yearnings to things she could control, like her star charts and astronomical observations.

“You must have business with the vice president, then,” she said, her voice neutral.