The Vespertine (3 page)

"It's very like you," I agreed, rubbing the ivory edges of it. "But I..."

"That's the living end, Charles," Mrs. Stewart shouted from downstairs.

Zora's eyes went wide, and I felt my pulse tick up. That could only be Mr. Stewart, and what could be so devastating as to make my most proper cousin shout like a fishwife? Zora dumped cards and catalog alike on the bed and motioned for me to follow her to the stairs.

We tried not to clatter, keeping our shoes firmly on the blue carpeting. When the wall gave way to open banister, we crouched to listen.

"Ohhhhh," Zora said, resting her hand on my neck. "James Keller canceled on us again. Listen to Mama rant."

"Honestly, are we made of money? That boy's naught but a useless rag!"

Mr. Stewart laughed, then shut up immediately. "I'm sorry, dear heart."

When all went silent, Zora and I exchanged a look. Like fire jumping from the hearth, we both leaped up. A fine, tall man ruined our escape when he appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Zora resembled him most remarkably.

"You must be our boarder," he said, with the same smile that Zora'd used when she asked if I could polish boots. He turned an expectant look on his daughter as he put on his hat.

Zora skimmed down the stairs—the same vision of unearthly beauty I had met that morning. She leaned toward her father and reached back for me at once. "Papa, may I present Amelia van den Broek? Amelia, this is my father, Mr. Stewart."

I tried to drift down the stairs in Zora's fashion, but I bumped and thumped, frighteningly raw and broad beside her. "An honor, sir."

"Entirely mine," he said, and took my hand. "Lizzy spoke highly of you."

"She's too kind," I said.

"Do pardon me, ladies," Mr. Stewart said, with a step toward the door. Fairy lights played in his eyes as he told Zora, "I'm off to rescue your dinner party."

"Not Sebastian," Zora said plaintively.

"I have my intentions. Beware! Oh, my apologies, I meant—" He gave a little bow with a flourish. "Be well." And with a laugh, Mr. Stewart was off.

Cross, Zora hitched her skirts and stalked toward the stairs. "I know he's only teasing, but it's a given truth! Sebastian ruins everything."

Following her back up, I could do naught but inquire at the intrigue. "Does he?"

"Yes!" In the middle of her room, Zora spun and tossed herself on the bed so completely that she'd need help back up. Though her corsets were looser laced for the day, she'd still be left to roll back and forth on the duvet like an upturned turtle. "First, he's a cousin, so he's no good for flirting with. Second, he's mad about an Araber's daughter and talks about her incessantly."

My trunk had arrived during our walk, and I opened it in search of something fresh to wear for dinner. "Is there a third?"

With a hand clapped over her eyes, Zora groaned. "Third, he fancies himself working class, which I suppose is closer to true than the lot of us imagining we're Astors, but he revels! He revels in rough suits and unkempt hair and dirty fingernails!"

"You sound entirely precious," I teased, shaking out my best overdress.

Sighing, Zora rolled, then rolled again, before giving up to sprawl on her back. "Mama says these are my dinner parties, but you see who arranges everything, don't you?"

"Let's then ask to manage the games afterward," I suggested, as if I had ever had a dinner party in my life.

Spreading her gown with her fingers, Zora sighed. "Mama would never."

"Beg it as a favor," I said. Then brightening, I unfolded my dinner skirt and turned to her. "Claim it's to educate me."

"You
are
dreadfully underschooled."

"Hardly fit for anything." Laying out my entire dinner dress, I stood back to consider it. "It would be a kindness, really. I'm nearly feral; what man would have me?"

"I read there's an orangutan on display in New York that wears a hat and smokes a pipe. Perhaps he would."

"For that, I should tip you onto the floor."

"Have I overstepped myself?" Zora asked.

And since I was a feral girl from the wilds of Maine, I offered my hand—and then tipped her onto the floor.

***

The steady Mrs. Stewart from the docks had turned into a humming, buzzing whirl as we waited for the guests. Her skirts snapped as she moved from certifying the place settings to arranging Zora's curls against her cheeks. Then she turned to me with a distinct cloud of dismay.

"It's my best suit," I explained, trying to follow her with my eyes as she circled.

"And a well-done suit it is."

"She means it's unfashionable," Zora said.

"I mean it's a well-done suit." Mrs. Stewart reproved Zora with a sharp look. "Simply, the farther from London and Paris, the longer it takes to get the latest styles."

I stung with a fresh blush. I should have something gauzine and feminine like Zora had. She'd worn her tea gown all day, adding a shawl, a layer, a shell, until her morning breakfast dress had turned to formal dinner attire. It fit her softly, a vision in silk and lace.

Beside her, I was a great green beast. My suit only fit if my corsets were strung as tight as possible, so I stood breathless in heavy, peacock satin. From shoulder to thigh, my bodice armored me—a quilted shell in more of the same dour shade. I felt like our carriage at home, suitable for funerals and drudgery.

Finally, Mrs. Stewart clasped her hands together. She had no choice but to give up on me. "Pay it no mind, Amelia. You're our country guest;everyone knows that."

"What a terrible thing to say." Zora raised her hand to her lips, pretending shame.

"Did You offer her one of yours?" Mrs. Stewart replied, crisp again.

"She did, but they all came up too short."

Finally, Mrs. Stewart repeated, "It's a fine suit."

"You'll have new dresses soon," Zora added, slipping her arm into mine. "It's mostly family tonight, anyway. There's no one to impress."

Gray eyes rolling, Mrs. Stewart brushed past me to go check on the kitchen. She muttered under her breath as she went, which made Zora laugh.

"That wasn't awkward or uncomfortable at all," she said, petting me.

"It's almost like I belong here."

Eyes lighting again, Zora tugged my arm, and I turned with her. We spun slowly, a country mouse and a city mouse, and she waited until she'd ducked under my arm to say, "Don't you?"

***

As Zora claimed, the dinner party was hers, even if her mother had decided everything from the menu to the china. Not a single guest could have been older than seventeen.

I'd never seen so many new faces at once, never shaken so many hands. Each one passed me to the next, their little novelty to entertain until they could return to familiar gossip on matters about which I knew nothing.

How would I ever remember so many names? I could scarcely breathe for the heat of so many people in such a small space. I found myself standing close to a window—shut, but the glass was cool where I dared to touch it at the sill.

All their voices mingled, spinning around in my head until the noise became a wall. I couldn't think because of it. I felt like I'd been dropped into a deafening silence, one that filled and emptied me at once.

As church bells tolled vespers, calling good Catholics to their evening prayers, I watched smoke rise in the goldening air. Sunset turned everything gilt. It made crimson edges of roofs and gables. All the pure white marble steps I'd admired on my walk with Zora now reflected amber.

Startled, I squinted through the light again. I swore, in all the gold, I saw dancers.

They rose like ghosts. At first, they skimmed through the air, stepping down the line in a reel. I curled a hand around my own throat, holding my breath now. I watched these unfathomable dancers sharpen, until I could make out faces! Familiar faces!

I saw Zora lower her eyes as she took a gloved hand. A spectral Thomas took wild liberties—his touch on her waist! Pulling her against his chest!

At once, phantasmal music filled my ears. Strings sang sweetly, high and crying, calling these young sweethearts to sway closer. Zora and Thomas turned through shimmering light, and I cried out when a real hand fell on my shoulder. It rent the vision like gauze, and I spun around.

"Our Fourteenth is here," Zora said, then added with concern, "I didn't mean to frighten you."

But she had. It was like I wasn't prepared to see her in the flesh, after so recently seeing her in a sunset reverie. She was no more golden than a bowl of apples, her gown nothing like the ornate confection I had just seen. Dreamed?

All the colors of the world had come back, but only because they had drained from me completely. Trying to gather my wits, I asked, "Is it Thomas?"

"No. He's a Fourteenth." Making the queerest face, Zora frowned, then recovered. "Papa hired him. I understand he paints."

We threaded through her guests to get a look at this hired guest, and I asked, "Houses?"

"Portraits. They all live in Mount Vernon Place. Bachelor painters and actors and such. Have them for dinner Friday, see them in the matinee on Saturday."

My smile grew curious. "All because it's bad luck to have thirteen?"

Zora shrugged. "We're civilized people."

"It makes me suspicious of your mother's culinary skills," I said, huddling on one side of the doorway to get a look. Already I could make out dark, waved hair and a suit that fit neatly. "That You should have to pay someone to round out the numbers."

With a pinch, Zora teased, "We're paying him to endure
you,
not the soup."

Thus far, I'd felt very clever in Zora's company, so I'm quite sure I would've said something witty if the Fourteenth hadn't turned from Mr. Stewart to look right at me.

Right into me.

M
ISS
S
TEWART," HE SAID
, gliding past me to meet Zora.

I found myself plunged into darkness. Jealousy clasped me in its claw, an envy so raw and profound I wanted to weep with it. I decided I shouldn't ever let my imagination run away again, because it made me a terrible person. How could I burn with such covetousness, just because he introduced himself to my new friend?

"Nathaniel Witherspoon," he said, and bowed his head.

When he turned from Zora to me, the light went on again. His black eyes somehow cast me in the glow of a perpetual flame. He slipped his hand into mine, and I forgot how shocking and badly mannered that made him. I forgot everything but the mystery of his touch. He wore no gloves, and mine were only lace, so I felt his hand skin to skin.

"And you are Miss van den Broek," he said, and kissed my hand.

The warmth of his mouth bloomed across my hand, and his nails skimmed the inside of my wrist. Such great sensation for so little a touch; I had to struggle to answer him. "I am."

His face bore a hundred contradictions, round as the moon, but his jaw was handsomely sculpted. Thin lips held some claim on lushness, and his flat, almost messy nose flared with regal amusement when I failed to say anything more.

When he murmured, I felt his voice as vividly as I heard it. "Is the pleasure entirely mine?"

"Mr. Witherspoon," Zora reproved, and it distracted me how entirely ordinary she sounded. As if she had not noticed the buzz in the air.

Tipping his head, Nathaniel offered me his elbow. When I took it, the parlor lurched into motion again, into life again—suddenly, the sounds of conversation filled my ears. I felt the heat again of so much company, the floors rumbling with so many feet walking across it.

Clapping, Zora swept into the cloud of her friends and family, a dusky rose turning among them. "Shall we to dinner, then?"

Everyone else knew their order, and we filed into the dining room two by two. Nathaniel and I were left to wait for the last seats. Stolen glances told me so much more and yet nothing at all about the boy at my arm.

His suit was a deep shade of plum, one that masqueraded as black in all but the most direct light. His collar and cuffs were crisper than even Mr. Stewart's, held by enameled pins.

Only his boots betrayed him, pointing out that he was the starving artist Zora claimed all Fourteenths were. The leather shone, but it was cracked with age, and I wondered, by the way he walked, if they fit him at all.

Nathaniel brushed his head close to mine. "Will You be answering, Miss van den Broek?"

Catching my breath, I looked at him sharply. "I hardly thought you meant me to."

"I find rhetorical questions dull, don't you?"

Left gaping, I fixed my gaze on the candles burning on the table. Each flame danced, leaping merry high, making festive shadows across the china, and casting the most enticing lights through the crystal.

In my mind's eye, I could see again Zora's and Thomas' golden dancing shades, and I shook my head to clear it. It seemed three days shipboard and an entire day of Baltimore's queer charms had unsettled me beyond all reckoning.

"If I may," Nathaniel said, slipping from me to pull out my chair.

Though I tried to say thank you, my words came out as a faint breath. He moved behind me, and I closed my eyes. I thought it would help steady me, but without the elegance of the table to distract me, I couldn't help but notice the spiced scent of his skin.

Rubbing at my stinging cheeks, I wondered if I could finish dinner but beg off the games afterward. I'd never been swallowed by emotion like this.

I admit, I'd never met many boys, and most of them just that day, but I was dizzy. I trembled, just because he stood near me. Surely Zora could see that I had taken a turn. Surely she would indulge me this once.

When Nathaniel sat, his gaze found mine again, and he
said, Are you troubled to find yourself so close to me?

And forever I'd swear it—he spoke, and I heard.

But his lips moved not at all.

***

A March table was too early for flowers, so Mrs. Stewart had set out bowls of pinecones and fir sprigs, whole walnuts set off by black crescents—some sort of nut I'd never seen or tasted. Beeswax candles sloped from high to low in a joined arrangement, centered on a blue velvet runner.