The House of Velvet and Glass (26 page)

“Dammit, I know it’s in here.”

Sibyl’s eyes roved over the faces jostling in the street. She felt conspicuous, too tall, alien, shaded into anonymity under her broad straw hat. Dovie was smaller, and though fairer than Sibyl, she fit in the streetscape with ease, having none of Sibyl’s self-consciousness.

“Dammit!” Dovie said again, and Sibyl shifted on her feet, willing herself invisible. Sibyl thought of shushing her but didn’t. Dovie wasn’t Eulah. Sibyl had no business correcting her. She had no business here at all.

“Oh, here it is.” Dovie sighed with relief. She unfolded a square sheet of paper, browned around the edges from handling, on which was scrawled a hasty series of Chinese characters. She stepped up to the nondescript doorway and rapped on it with her knuckles.

A porthole slid open, and one eye, as dark as Sibyl’s own, peered out with suspicion. Dovie held up the paper with a broad, sparkling smile. The eye took in whatever message the paper had to offer for a long minute. Then the porthole slid closed.

Several minutes ticked by, Dovie rocking back on her heels like a girl eager to begin a footrace. Murmured discussion could be heard going on inside. Sibyl’s stomach rolled over with a growl.

“Miss Whistler, what—” Sibyl was interrupted by the cracking open of the door. No explicit invitation issued from within. In fact Sibyl wasn’t entirely certain that the door had opened on purpose.

“It’s Dovie, you silly goose. C’mon.” Dovie smiled, threading her arm through the crook of Sibyl’s elbow. Sibyl allowed herself to be pulled forward.

A watery man waited inside, greeting them with a wary glance and the subtlest incline of his head.

“Creesy, it’s so good to see you again!” Dovie trilled, waggling her fingers at the man in a coquettish way that Sibyl found both endearing and calculated. The man didn’t register her greeting, instead gesturing with an outstretched arm that they could advance down the hall. Dovie responded with a delighted laugh and tightened her grip on Sibyl’s elbow.

“Don’t worry, he’s always like that. I don’t think he’s really a mute, though.” Dovie said this last part loudly enough so that the watery man would overhear.

Sibyl blushed at Dovie’s rudeness, but let herself be led deeper into the building. Narrow, dark, thickly carpeted, with wall sconces casting a weak glow, the hall swallowed the two women up, its dimness cloying after the bright springtime afternoon outside. Dovie lit their way with the pure force of her enthusiasm. They reached a steep staircase, echoing with the distant sound of a gramophone. Creaking footsteps, but no conversation, circulated in the room overhead. Sibyl hung back.

“I don’t. That is, I’m not—” Sibyl started to protest.

“Oh, come now,” Dovie teased. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Dovie bestowed a celestial smile on her, and Sibyl felt bathed in the girl’s confidence. Dovie started up the stairs, and Sibyl followed, one cautious step at a time. At the top of the stairs draped a crimson velvet curtain, lined with golden tassels. Dovie folded herself through the curtain, disappearing into the unseen room. Sibyl paused, screwing up her courage, and then passed through.

She found herself in a sumptuously appointed drawing room, with double-height ceilings and carved wood moldings. Red tapestry drapes shuttered away the sunshine, creating a cozy dimness of indeterminate time. The only light came from two massive brass chandeliers, their arms outstretched like arching insect legs, with lights glowing on the ends of their feet, and a few brass candelabra placed at odd intervals. Two fireplaces dominated opposite sides of the room, both with walnut mantels, and fires crackling behind their screens.

The furniture was like something out of the Arabian nights, or a cartoonish fantasy of it. Several patterns of exotic carpet, both Turkish and Chinese, battled for dominance on the floor in a riot of reds and ochres, geometric patterns and biomorphic leaves. Along the edges of the room, in confidential groups of two and three, long chaises lurked in the shadows, holding reclining figures of men and women whose faces were difficult to make out.

A few overstuffed silken pillows were heaped in inviting nests before the fireplaces. Low enameled tables bore small trays, each with a lamp. The gramophone, its blooming tube like a giant morning glory rendered in brass, crooned a song that Sibyl recognized, a popular one from a few years ago. She almost remembered the words.

Something something melancholy baaaaby
. . .

Next to the gramophone towered a Gothic revival grandfather clock, crowned in wicked-looking turrets. The clock’s hands promised that it was still the middle of a springtime afternoon, but the darkness of the room made Sibyl unsure that the clock could be trusted.

Dovie, grinning, slid out of her coat and searched with eager eyes in the dim recesses of the room, Sibyl didn’t know for what. Sibyl edged nearer to her, closing her own coat around herself. No one spoke. A few plumes of smoke drifted to the ceiling. Under the music and the steady ticking of the clock flowed a current of deep silence that Sibyl found unnerving.

A small man of indeterminate middle age approached them with a smile and a low bow. The man was probably Chinese, Sibyl guessed, but his outfit was a bizarre mishmash of crimson Zouave pantaloons, full through the leg and gathered at the ankle, silk blouse embroidered with cherry blossoms, and odd long slippers with coiled toes. She almost broke out laughing, seeing his elaborate and fantastical costume, but managed to keep quiet.

“Miss Whistler!” the costumed man cried with evident pleasure, taking Dovie’s hands in his. “Such a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you, Mister Chang,” Dovie said, bestowing on him the full force of her dimpled smile. “But it’s so crowded today. I do hope we won’t have to wait?”

“You? Wait?” the man brought a shocked hand to his chest and seemed appalled at the very thought. “No, no. No wait.”

He clapped his hands, and a young boy, uncostumed and surly, appeared at his side. Dovie heaped her coat into the boy’s arms without a word, and Sibyl followed suit.

“Splendid. I really think we should have something close to the fire, don’t you? Won’t the light be so much better?” Dovie said, bringing her hands to her waist, imitating a posing film actress, and tossing her hair off her forehead.

Her comment seemed aimed at both Sibyl and the proprietor, a demand rather than a suggestion. Sibyl shrugged, a neutral smile on her face.

“Come this way,” the man said, nodding his head. “Fireplace, yes. I have just the thing.”

He walked along on quick, shuffling feet, careful of the turned-up toes of his slippers, and showed them to a pair of chaises by the far fireplace. The lounges were both carved Victorian monstrosities, heavy with cherubs, upholstered in rival shades of purple, silk on one, velvet on the other. Their raised ends, for resting arms or heads, were nestled together. A low table stood between them, empty save for a taper candle, burned to a nub and smoking. The fire popped, casting the corner between the chaises in an inviting orange glow.

Dovie flopped onto the silk chaise with a sigh of relief and reached down to begin unfastening her buttoned boots. As she did so she said to Sibyl, “I think some tea would be good, wouldn’t it? And aren’t you hungry?”

Sibyl, smile still careful and arranged, said, “If you are.”

Dovie turned to the proprietor, who waited, bent and attentive, his mouth in an expectant smile, and said, “Green tea, please, Mister Chang. And some of those funny little cakes that you do. I’m famished.”

“Very good, Miss Whistler,” he said, still half bowing. “And, may I be so bold as to recommend the Burmese this afternoon? It’s very fine. Very fine indeed.”

Dovie’s eyebrows rose as she freed one foot from a boot and flexed her stockinged toes. “You know I always defer to you,” she said. “Let’s have one for each of us. And give us Quincey, if you please. My friend’s never been before.”

“Of course,” the man said and shuffled off on his slippers.

Dovie let out a happy laugh, leaning on one elbow while she freed her other foot from its boot. Sibyl sat erect on the velvet chaise, hands folded in her lap. Dovie curled up on the chaise and lounged back, resting her cheek against the end of the sofa. She leveled hypnotic eyes on Sibyl and smiled, free hand toying with a fine chain around her neck.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” she said, watching Sibyl.

“I’m not nervous!” Sibyl chirped, knotting her hands in her lap. Dovie laughed.

The surly boy reappeared, kneeling to unload a fat ceramic teapot, two cups with no handles, and a plate of sticky sweets—the cakes. The boy lifted the teapot lid, took a disdainful sniff, and clattered it closed before pouring. Sibyl took a tentative sip. It was different from the tea that she was accustomed to drinking—paler, astringent.

Dovie took up one of the cakes in her fingers. She chewed and laughed at the same time, shaking her hair, and Sibyl smiled, feeling her sense of unease begin to loosen.

“You brought the crystal ball, right?” Dovie asked.

Sibyl rummaged in her pocket and withdrew the blue crystal. Dovie wiped cakey fingertips on her skirt—Sibyl’s skirt—and reached for the trinket. Once in possession of the prize the girl flopped back on the silk chaise, folding up her knees and chuckling with mischief. She rolled the ball between her palms while Sibyl watched, sipping her tea.

“Look how it sparkles,” Dovie exclaimed. It was true—the surface of the orb drew the firelight into itself until it was wrapped in pale, swirling colors, as if it had been dipped in oil.

“You think it just requires different light?” Sibyl teased. “I tried it in the medium’s own drawing room, you know. I’d think you’d be hard-pressed to find better light than that, for divining.”

Dovie said, “Hmmmmm” and sent Sibyl a knowing look under her eyelashes.

Across the room, someone wound the gramophone, and the same mournful song started to play.

A man shuffled up, balancing a tray on unsteady arms. He was leathery and old, or at least, he seemed old, but on closer examination Sibyl decided that he could be anywhere between thirty and sixty. His skull showed below the sallow flesh of his face, his cheeks caved in, clinging to the contours of his teeth. His clothes, simply cut and linen, drooped as though meant for someone else—perhaps for the man that he had once been. This ghost knelt by their table, moving the teapot aside with a practiced gesture. His eyes did not rise. They might as well have not been there at all.

“Quincey’s the best,” Dovie whispered, watching his labors with appreciation.

The man eased the lacquered tray onto the table, making certain of its stability before running his slow hands over the various implements resting there. A cut crystal lamp, with no chimney, already lit. Two long needles, like knitting needles, but thinner, with their narrower ends propped on a stand. A slender pair of gilt scissors, bent in the shape of twin swan necks. One delicate silver spoon. A polished wooden box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gilt wire in the shape of a flower. And, lastly, two lengths of bamboo, with chased silver caps on one end, and shallow blue-and-white ceramic bowls about two-thirds of the way down, attached with ornate silver scrollwork.

Sibyl watched the man shuffle these mysterious items on the tray, sitting on his heels, absorbed in his work. The man’s mouth was pursed, and as his hands moved over the inlaid box his jaw worked the way a starving person would when touching a plate of ripe fruit. Sibyl felt vague disquiet, and she glanced over her shoulder. The Gothic clock ticked, the gramophone played. Nothing was amiss.

When she turned back she found Dovie already leaning forward, bow-shaped lips pressed to the silver end of the bamboo. She tipped the ceramic bowl, angling it nearer the lamp. The man, kneeling, held one of the needles between fingertips and thumb, pointed end angled to a tiny hole in the bowl, twirling. He and Dovie concentrated their full attention on this enterprise, and with sudden certainty Sibyl, flushing at her own ignorance, grasped where she was.

“Dovie,” she began but was interrupted by the girl’s eyes fluttering closed, her soft cheeks drawing in as she pulled at what Sibyl now understood to be a pipe.

The girl paused, reclining on her side, stockinged feet crossed at the ankles, and then leaned her head back with a sighing smile, the pipe slipping in her hands. Under heavy lids Dovie’s eyes traveled to Sibyl. They glittered in the firelight as a slow smile spread over Dovie’s features, softening them, making her seem even younger than she was.

“It’s okay,” the girl murmured, drawing the syllables out. “Really. Quincey’ll show you.”

Dovie took a deep breath, keeping hold of the pipe with one hand while the other stretched, languid, over her head, coming to rest along the back of the chaise with exquisite indifference.

“But, I . . . ,” Sibyl groped for what she was supposed to say.

She listened inside her mind for her mother’s chastening voice, the voice that always told her how to behave. Usually it chattered along with a steady commentary, as though Helen herself were looking over the shoulder of Sibyl’s life. Sibyl found it silent on this question. Should she be shocked? Angry? Should she have known this was where Dovie was taking her?

“I don’t understand,” Sibyl said.

“The visions,” Dovie breathed, settling more deeply into the silk chaise, thumb playing over the shaft of the pipe.

Her hand swam downward, smoothing itself into the folds of her borrowed skirt and withdrawing the crystal ball. She brought it to her face, rolling it onto her forehead, down her nose, to her lips, over her chin, along her neck, to her throat with a torpid smile.

“I wanted you to see,” Dovie said. “It gives the most beautiful dreams.”

Chapter Fourteen