The House of Velvet and Glass (14 page)

“How does it work?” Sibyl asked, entranced.

Mrs. Dee laughed. “It’s the spirit guides who reveal the hidden truths to us. They’ve crossed over and so can see far beyond what we can. I’d think, given your particular problem”—she eyed Sibyl, knowing—“that your dear mother and sister would wish to give us their aid and comfort. Don’t you think?”

Sibyl held her breath, sitting perfectly still, warring with the burning tears collecting in the rims of her eyes. So that was why she had led herself back here. Sibyl wanted Helen to solve Harlan’s problem. Helen had always been soft with Harlan, admiring and permissive. If Sibyl was honest, she could admit that as a girl she had sometimes envied her cherished younger brother.

Of course, it was rather a hard lot, to be cherished. The beloved can so easily disappoint when they inevitably prove to be human. And Harlan was certainly that. He was prone to solitary imaginary games as she was, never as good in school as he knew he should be. Harlan had been given to understand that he was constantly at risk of being a grave disappointment. But even with Harlan’s flaws, Sibyl knew her mother would worry over the recent changes that had come over her son.

“Oh, I hope so,” Sibyl wished, eyes fixed on the glittering trinket rolling in Mrs. Dee’s palms.

“As do I,” Mrs. Dee assured her.

“What do we have to do?” Sibyl asked.

“Just rest your eyes on the ball,” Mrs. Dee urged. “And concentrate as hard as you possibly can. It’s the magnetic forces in the mind, affecting the latent magnetism of the crystal, that opens a fissure between our world and the next, like a cable wire to the beyond. We need all of our concentration.”

The explanation of the crystal’s mechanism slid past Sibyl. Instead she nodded, furrowing her brow with effort as she stared into the medium’s hands. Several minutes passed in silence as both women fixed their gaze, barely blinking, on the sparkling ball.

Somewhere in the distance, muffled by walls and upholstery, a clock began to chime the dinner hour, and Sibyl realized with a sinking in her stomach that she was being missed at home. Lan would be dining by himself, assuming Harlan hadn’t returned, and her father hated dining alone. Sibyl frowned with mingled guilt and dismay. She could already hear his objections when she returned to the town house. Couldn’t she have called? Surely she hadn’t been out, alone, with Benton Derby, at this late hour?

She scowled, plotting out the coming argument in her mind. An explanation of her true whereabouts would do little to placate him after his lonesome supper in the dining room, attended by the withering gaze of Mrs. Doherty, her very silence serving to underscore her disapproval of his recalcitrant children. Sibyl’s grim anticipation of this homecoming kindled warring desires to hurry home immediately, and to flee and never return.

Sibyl noticed that she had forgotten to keep concentrated on the crystal ball. Her mind had wandered. She glanced at Mrs. Dee to see if the medium had perceived her inattention, but the lady appeared absorbed in her work. Sibyl let out her breath by a small degree, relieved, and turned her guilty attention to the orb.

Its surface had changed. The tiny points of light seemed duller, less playful. Almost as if obscured by smoke. Sibyl blinked, bringing moisture to her eyes. No, her eyes were clear, but the orb seemed smokier. There was no fire going in the parlor that could be leaking smoke from the flue, since she had burst in on Mrs. Dee unexpected. But wait, Mrs. Dee said she knew Sibyl was coming. Odd. And it had been gray and chilly all day, her father even thinking they’d have frost by nightfall. But in any case, no fire. The lamp’s wick was well trimmed; it wasn’t smoking, either. She peered closer.

Sibyl imagined she could see clouds moving over the surface of the glass. Smoke, or clouds? Sibyl couldn’t tell. As she stared the smoke coiled back on itself in whorls, moving, slow, silent.

“There!” Mrs. Dee cried, and Sibyl jumped from the unexpected intrusion of the medium’s voice. “There, I see her! Her face, just as it was. Ah, Helen, my lost and most mourned friend!”

Sibyl looked back at the glass, confused. The smoke had vanished. The orb had reverted to a pretty, sparkling, inert object.

“How blessed I am to rest my weary eyes on your countenance!” Mrs. Dee cried, delivering her lines with flair. Sibyl sometimes wondered if Mrs. Dee formed her persona in part from watching the representations of mediums in films. Still, the drama suited the small woman. The language lent her a gravitas that was lacking in her physical form.

Sibyl’s gaze oscillated between the medium’s face and the ball, watchful and alert. Mrs. Dee gave every appearance of beholding a clear vision in the glass, but try as she might, Sibyl saw nothing. Less than nothing. She saw a round lump of rock.

“Mrs. D—” she started to say, but was stilled by the medium’s holding up of one pudgy finger. Sibyl sat back, chastened. When she was still, Mrs. Dee continued.

“Helen, my dear, you surely must know why we summon you. Why we reluctantly rouse you from the paradise where we know, in our hearts, that you now reside.”

Mrs. Dee paused, her eyes closed, the corners of her mouth turned up in a willful smile. When her eyes opened again they darted to Sibyl, who caught their look for an instant before they returned to the glass orb.

“I am here with Sibyl, your loving daughter. She has such worries, my dear. I know you ache to soothe her. Would that it were possible for you to reach out from beyond the grave and smooth the cares from her fevered brow!” Mrs. Dee’s voice rose in pathos, her chin lifting to carry her exhortations to the ceiling of the dim parlor.

Sibyl folded her hands in her lap, brows lowering over her eyes. Her nostrils flared.

“But what? What’s that you say?” Mrs. Dee cried, bringing the orb up to her nose and peering inside, as a child might into a Christmas present. There was a long, excruciating silence. One of Sibyl’s thumbnails dug into the flesh of her palm.

“Ah!” Mrs. Dee sighed.

Sibyl sat forward.

“Oh, how wonderful,” the medium exclaimed. “Helen, I shall tell her. I shall tell her immediately.” Then the medium closed her eyes and lowered the orb to her tapestried lap.

Her low simmering skepticism cast aside, Sibyl gripped the armrests of her chair. Feeling at once foolish but full of hope, she forced herself to stay in her seat. Her breath came fast and high in her chest, and her heart thudded so that she thought it must be visible, trembling under the delicate linen of her blouse.

After a time, Sibyl wasn’t sure how long, she observed Mrs. Dee’s eyelids fluttering, like moths’ wings, over her rounded cheeks. The woman roused herself from an unspecified altered state, sighed with satisfaction, and turned to Sibyl.

“My dear, I have wondrous news to report,” Mrs. Dee began. “I have communed with your mother’s spirit, yet again. How blessed we are! Could you see her? Could you?”

Sibyl’s shoulders vibrated near her ears, humming with anxiety and frustration.

“No, Mrs. Dee,” she said, her voice small. “I couldn’t see her. Please. Please, just tell me what she said. Tell me how I can help Harlan.”

Mrs. Dee reached a soft hand forward and patted Sibyl on her knee. “You poor darling,” she murmured. “But you have nothing to fear. Your mother asks me to tell you that she sees your troubles. She is sorry that the household depends so much on you. She wishes you to know that she loves you, and so does your dear sister.”

Sibyl’s mouth twitched, out of relief partly, but mostly out of guilt, for all that afternoon she had scarcely thought of Eulah. Eulah, who was worth the cost of the ticket to go on the tour. Eulah, who was sure to marry well. Eulah, who’d been pretty like Helen, not staid and Allstony, like Sibyl. At times Sibyl worried that, in a black and tarry corner of her heart, she was relieved that Eulah had been the one chosen to go on the ocean liner, and not her. As soon as the uninvited thought began to form, Sibyl rejected it as impossible. She loved her sister. Everyone loved her sister. She was young, she was vibrant, she was glamorous and unconventional, she . . .

Without Sibyl’s noticing that it was about to happen, a teardrop coalesced in the inner corner of her eye, brimmed over, and traced down her cheek, around the groove at the side of her nostril, to the ridge atop her lip. The salty taste brought Sibyl back, and she cast dejected eyes into her lap. Without looking up, she whispered, “What of my brother, Mrs. Dee? What did Mother have to say about him?”

The hand on her knee lingered there and squeezed in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring. “She sees your fear for him,” Mrs. Dee murmured. “She sees, and she pities. But she wishes you to know that all will be well with your brother.”

Sibyl glanced up, her brimming eyes searching Mrs. Dee’s face.

“He will,” the medium affirmed, answering Sibyl’s unspoken plea. “You must be patient. You must wait. But all will be well.”

“Really?” Sibyl whispered.

The medium smiled a tiny, self-satisfied smile.

The two women sat, regarding each other across the tea table, the oil lamp flickering. Sibyl had no idea of the time. Her father would be anxious. But what if what the medium was saying was true? Perhaps she didn’t need to do anything at all. Harlan could even have come home while she was away.

Sibyl stood, fumbling a wrinkled handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbing under her eyes. Mrs. Dee stood also, signaling to the butler, who moved about on silent feet, illuminating lights. He drew apart the velvet curtains at the window, but night had come to Beacon Hill, extinguishing the last of the weak afternoon sunlight. Sibyl caught sight of herself broken into pieces and reflected by the lozenge-shaped panes of glass.

When Sibyl turned, tucking the moist scrap of linen back up her sleeve, she found Mrs. Dee gazing on her with a look of sincere-seeming concern. The medium stroked her arm, saying nothing. Sibyl smiled, but it was a stoic smile. The medium took her elbow and walked her to the front hall.

There, the butler proffered Sibyl’s overcoat and hat, which she accepted. In principle, she ought to feel relieved. Sibyl glanced back to Mrs. Dee, whose face wore an expression of worry. The medium lifted her chin to the butler, gesturing with a flick of her eyes back into the parlor.

“What a difficult few days you’ve had,” Mrs. Dee murmured to Sibyl as he disappeared.

Sibyl hesitated, and then nodded.

“Have you spoken with your father about this?” she asked. Sibyl wasn’t sure if by “this” Mrs. Dee meant the séances, or her worries for Harlan. Perhaps both. She shook her head.

Mrs. Dee nodded sagely. The butler reappeared and passed something to the matron without a word. “I’d like you to have this,” she said, taking Sibyl by the hands and pressing the object into them. It was the velvet-lined wooden box containing the scrying glass. Sibyl’s brows rose in surprise.

“There’s no need to thank me,” Mrs. Dee assured her with a final squeeze of Sibyl’s hands. “I’d like to think it could ease your cares, if you keep the tool whereby your mother came to us. Whenever your worries grow most acute, I’d like you to hold the orb to your breast and remind yourself that you are loved, and that all will be well.”

Sibyl stood mute with surprise as the small woman, smiling sweetly, withdrew. Then she was gone, swallowed by the shadows in the town house. Mrs. Dee enjoyed her exits as much as her entrances.

For the first time that day, Sibyl felt the iron grip of worry begin to loosen. Instead, she felt clear about what she must do. Confident. Sibyl paused by the hall stand to affix her hat, wondering if the butler could be persuaded to summon a taxicab to carry her home. Sibyl turned from the hall stand mirror, on the point of asking the butler if he would be so kind as to . . .

He was hovering just at her elbow. She jumped, having not known he was there. His eyes traveled down from her face, to the hall stand, to the small marble shelf on the hall stand, all the way down to the hall stand’s genteel silver visiting card bowl, standing empty.

He cleared his throat and fixed her with a long and meaningful stare.

Cheeks burning with shame, Sibyl understood. She rummaged in her pocketbook to withdraw Mrs. Dee’s standard fee.

Chapter Seven

Sibyl found him in the inner drawing room, as she expected she might. Her father’s form was obscured by an open newspaper, turned to the international affairs page. A cheerful fire crackled in the hearth, bathing the normally grave room in a dancing orange glow. The room’s air was tinted with the homelike aroma of pipe tobacco and old port, opened and left to breathe. The hour was later even than she realized, and Sibyl half thought she would return home to find her father already retired for the evening. Instead Mrs. Doherty showed her, or rather marched her, to the pocket doors and left her there, making it clear that Sibyl had no option but to go in. Obediently Sibyl edged into the room, hugging the wall with its silk upholstery covered in arcing cherry blossoms and painted junks, unsure which of Lan’s many faces she might find when the newspaper dropped.

“It’s a damned dirty business,” her father growled from behind the newsprint. Sibyl made her way over to the somnolent macaw perched on his hat rack, one claw tucked into his chest feathers, beak almost smiling under watchful avian eyes. She extended a finger and scratched under the animal’s chin. He let her do so, cheek feathers bristling.